Are there any living World War I veterans?

If I'd seen anywhere selling them, I'd have bought a white one instead.

I thought we might hear from them

Do they post here?

Remembering Our Glorious Dead when, even as I write, their number is being added to minute by minute in Iraq and elswehere, strikes me as ever so slightly tasteless.

My great-uncle died in the Second World War, and is buried in a small town outside Munich. I'm not entirely sure why, because when his plane was shot down it was supposed to be dropping bombs on Frankfurt.

Are there any living World War I veterans?

I'm wearing one
-- caitlin

"Cole cited recent FCC actions and last week's re-election of President Bush as reasons for replacing 'Saving Private Ryan' on Thursday with a music program and the TV movie 'Return to Mayberry.'" Says it all, really.

Remembrance Day is organised by the powers that be. The powers that be are the first to lay the wreaths. It has only ever existed for the benefit of the powers that be. The huge cost of war is exactly why fundraising is deemed necessary to provide things which should be met out of public taxation.

Let's remember the dead while we're busy killing people? Now that's sick.

they should have replaced it with "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man"

I recently went to the burial of a WW1 soldier, who'd fallen at the battle of Loos, and been discovered in road works in 2001. There was so much politics going on at the service - the local town council, the MOD, the battalion, all jumping on the bandwagon and using it for their own ends, but the surviving family were there, and they got to see the burial of their uncle they never met, the man their dad spent two years looking for in france at the end of the war. The service etc. was organised by the 'powers that be' but just because they organised it for their own means didn't mean that the service itself was tainted or that it shouldn't have taken place.

That's what I remember. I don't observe it in the same way as Blair, Bush or the Queen - I don't feel the war dead are noble or glorious. I'm struck by how lucky I am not to be called up like my grandparents and their generation were and that's why I give money for a poppy. The money goes to help veterans who were unlucky enough to be called up.

-- Kevin Gilchrist (KevinGil14...), November 11th, 2004.

And you don't think that's happening now, in Iraq?

xxpost

So today, I think about that. I think about the friends in elementary school, the bandmates, the ilxors that do not exist today because war killed their great-grandfather. I think about how it's still happening today.

Most of all, I reflect on Granddaddy's entry from this date, 86 years ago, when he wrote just two words in huge page-sized letters:

WAR OVER!

and one of them, Henry Allingham, 108, was in the cenotaph marchpast yesterday.

lots of ceremonial swords at yesterday's service, including most of the royal family. two minutes silence was started and stopped with canon fire. seems inappropriate to me.

Back in '95, I went to a VE Day anniversary celebration in my village, and the two minutes' silence was ended by sounding a WW2-vintage All Clear siren. It brought a bit of a lump to my throat.

Hate to sidetrack but what's the plan here?

There was a really good study on British soldiers in WWI called Tommy that I read recently...

Confederate widow, 89, lives in Arkansas

By Martha M. Boltz
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

With the announcement last week of the death of Alberta Martin of Alabama, the nation marked the loss of "the last Confederate widow," as she was inevitably identified. Mrs. Martin's first husband, William Jasper Martin, had been a Confederate soldier in his youth, and she cared for the aging veteran until his death.

But caution is advised before referring to someone as the "last" of anything.

The best proof of that is the recent discovery of 89-year-old Maudie Cecelia Hopkins of Lexa, Ark. Her first husband was William M. Cantrell of the Virginia Infantry, and Mrs. Hopkins is very much alive, although in poor health.

A quiet lady, less than 5 feet tall, she remains quite unimpressed by her historical status, which to her is simply a long-ago part of her life. She was merely William Cantrell's wife.

A soldier at 16

William Cantrell was born on March 15, 1847, and enlisted in the Confederate Army at age 16 in Pikeville, Ky., not far from Wise, Va., where his family lived.

Only 5 feet 4 inches tall, he is shown as having black hair and dark eyes, and of fair complexion. He enlisted in French's Battalion, Company A, of the Virginia Infantry, a group raised by Col. James M. French. A number of Cantrells appear on the roster of French's Battalion, and one of them was Hiram Cantrell, William's father, who was wounded by Union forces.

The records show that William was captured at Piketon, in Pike County, Ky., on April 15, 1863, and "sent under guard to Camp Chase, Ohio" four days later. The notation in the record states that "nearly all of those prisoners belonged to a regt. just being organized by Maj. J. M. French & having no definite designation, hence the column 'Regiment' is often left blank."

He is listed as a prisoner of war for the next six weeks, before being "paroled" on May 13, 1863, by order of a Lt. Col. Eastman. Afterward, he was sent to City Point, Va., for exchange. The record is silent as to any further activity, other than a receipt roll for clothing, as a prisoner.

His father was captured at Gladeville, Va., on July 7, 1863, and also sent to Camp Chase a few weeks later.

The genesis of French's Battalion appears to be the dissolution of the Virginia State Line Company a month earlier. Maj. French received permission to raise troops, and it was while on this recruiting foray into eastern Kentucky that William Cantrell was enlisted and subsequently captured. If Cantrell was part of the 5th VSL Company before going into Company A of French's Battalion, it was probably as a cavalryman. French wanted to enlist an entire complement of 1,000 men, and saw Pike County, Ky., as the best source. It turned out to be a bad choice, as within two weeks his command had been dispersed by Union troops under Capt. John Dils.

A crippling defeat

A letter from Union Col. George W. Gallup to Gen. Ambrose Burnside on April 19, 1863, said that "at the request of Col. John Dils, 39th Kentucky [Union] Regiment, I sent him, with a detachment of 200 ... selected, good, mounted riflemen, with orders to rout. ... Brisk skirmishing ensued for about an hour when the enemy was compelled to surrender the town. We captured Major French, 1 surgeon, 1 mustering officer, 5 captains, 9 lieutenants, 70 men, 30 horses and saddles, about 40 guns and all their stores, and ... destroyed their camp."

In some records, French's Battalion is referred to as the 65th Virginia Infantry, the designation French hoped to obtain, and others call it the 7th Virginia Mounted Infantry. Cantrell's gravestone shows only "7th Va. Infantry."

In August, the unit would come under the command of Col. Henry L. Giltner of the 4th Kentucky Cavalry, a part of Gen. John Hunt Morgan's brigade.

After the war ended and his family had relocated to Arkansas, Cantrell, a widower, married his second wife, Matilda McFall. After her death in 1929, the veteran, in his 80s, met Maudie Cecelia Acklin.

Advance, Ark., was a small town in the Ozarks with only one store and a post office. Everyone knew everyone, and the couple became acquainted when Can-trell asked her to clean house for him. Cantrell had begun to require some assistance due to his advancing age, and he also sought companionship from the pretty lady who had become his friend.

Solution to a problem

The fact that he was a widower, however, made finding live-in help difficult. According to Emmit Dolan Acklin, a second cousin to Mrs. Hopkins, "the mores of the time would not have this 19-year-old girl living there with Mr. Cantrell, so they decided to marry. That made it all right."

The marriage certificate, signed on Feb. 2, 1934, by A.E. Wickersham, justice of the peace in Baxter County, Ark., indicates that the groom was 86. Both were living at Lone Rock, Ark.

Mrs. Hopkins, in her own words, explained how she met Mr. Cantrell:

"I was living where I could, my parents could not afford to support all of us kids, I cleaned houses and did wash. We lived across the White River down in the forest. One day while I was cleaning this lady's house, this man came by and asked if I would clean his house. I told him that the lady paid me $10 and he said that he would pay me $12. I started cleaning his house.... [this was] 'Mr. Cantrell,' and one day he asked me if I would marry him and move in the house with him. I told him that I would have to think about that as he was so old.

"I finally decided that it was a place to live, and he said that he would see that I got the house and 200 acres when he died. Of course, in those days you could only get $1.25 an acre for woods land. I scratched out a garden, and when I sold enough eggs I would buy some sugar and then I could make jelly. Before Mr. Cantrell died, he deeded me the house and land. I continued to live there after I married Winfred White."

Parts of her family were not in favor of the May-December marriage. Some could understand it and approve; others could not. The couple chose to rise above the criticism and make a life for themselves.

In talking to Mrs. Hopkins, she quickly says that Cantrell "was a good man, a nice man, a respectable person. He was good to me, and I was good to him. I treated him like a baby."

Money was extremely tight, she said. "We had a good life, but it was hard. He got a veteran's pension. Sometimes it was twenty-five dollars a month; sometimes it just came every two months or every three months. That made life hard. But we were happy."

It would be a short marriage. Despite Mrs. Hopkins' best efforts and loving care, Cantrell died on Feb. 26, 1937.

There is no indication that Mrs. Hopkins ever drew a widow's pension. According to Mr. Acklin, "she said one time that people had told her she ought to apply for one, but she just never did."

Apparently William Cantrell did receive a minimal pension, provided by the Arkansas State Legislative Act 187 of 1917. Arkansas later legislated that no youthful widows of Confederate soldiers could receive pensions, to discourage the practice of young women marrying elderly soldiers simply for a lifetime benefit. Such widows were required to wait until they were 60 before applying for pension relief.

Mrs. Hopkins would marry three more times. Her last husband, Milton Hopkins, died in 1997.

She continues to live alone, resisting any attempt to be relocated to a nursing home. At least one daughter lives nearby and checks on her daily, and other family members visit her often, since she suffers from diabetes and other ailments common to those of her age. A nearby neighbor has brought her Sunday dinner for the last few years, and Mrs. Hopkins is grateful for the attention that her friends and neighbors give her, which enables her to retain her independence.

"I'm not going to a nursing homeþ" she adamantly told one of her daughters, Ida Mae Chamness, recently. And that was that.

In 1999, Emmett Acklin was able to get an official grave marker from the Veterans Administration for Cantrell, indicating his service in the Confederate Army. He is buried in the Burnt Schoolhouse Cemetery in Mountain Home, Baxter County, Ark.

Time to tell the story

One of Mrs. Hopkins' sons-in-law, Fred Chamness, learned recently of a ceremony being sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy at the city cemetery in Manassas to honor Virginia Confederates, and decided that it was the time and place to make others aware of his mother-in-law's unique status.

He quietly announced to several in attendance that "my mother-in-law is also a Confederate widow," and produced a photograph of Cantrell's grave with its official CSA grave marker. This was a week before Alberta Martin died.

He and his wife visited Mrs. Hopkins on Mother's Day, and she seemingly was unaware of her Confederate sister, Mrs. Martin. She rarely watches television or reads newspapers, but enjoys seeing her friends and relatives and living quietly in the rural area. Asked for Mrs. Hopkins' reaction to her newly discovered status as a Confederate widow, Mr. Chamness said she was "surprised in a way, but I guess it's natural." Mrs. Hopkins said she had always known that she was a Confederate widow, but apparently saw no reason to advertise the fact. Now others will do it for her.

Since that time, and with Mrs. Martin's death, Mrs. Hopkins quietly sits on her front porch on nice evenings, unaware of the stir her presence has caused in Confederate heritage circles. She has no stories to tell them and few recollections, at 89, of any told by her soldier husband. He only said he remembered lice crawling up his legs and eating through the leather garters to get to his skin. At one time there was a box of papers and photographs sitting on the porch, but when it was damaged by rain, someone threw it away.

At least people now know that another Civil War widow lives.

A concerted effort needs to be made to locate and identify any others who may be scattered across the country so that they can be recognized for the special place they hold in the hearts of those for whom the war period is a matter of interest and preservation.

Members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy are gathering information to assist Mrs. Hopkins in completing membership application papers, with the hope that she, too, will want to perpetuate her link to the Confederacy in a tangible way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_veterans_of_World_War_I

Living in Canada - 3 veterans

The Canadian House of Commons has approved a state funeral for the last World War I veteran to die. This is to honour the 600,000 Canadians that fought in that war.

Great, turn it into a contest! The first two to die lose.

One of the last two surviving French veterans of World War I has died at the age of 110.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44368000/jpg/_44368838_soldier_afp_203b.jpg

Germany's last WWI veteran dies

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44382000/jpg/_44382624_kaestner_ap203b.jpg

WWI stuff always makes me really melancholy, moreso than any other war i think.

RIP last French WWI veteran, who died today at age 110. Apparently there are still 7 veterans left throughout the world.

Everything about this BBC news report makes me melancholy

France's final WWI veteran dies
France's last surviving veteran of World War One, Lazare Ponticelli, has died at the age of 110.

President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death on Wednesday, paying tribute to the last "poilu", as French WWI veterans were known.

"Today, I express the nation's deep emotion and infinite sadness," he said.

Mr Ponticelli, originally Italian, had lied about his age in order to join the French Foreign Legion in August 1914, aged 16, Mr Sarkozy said.

There are a handful of surviving WWI veterans from other countries, including British pilot Henry Allingham and Austro-Hungarian artillery man Franz Kunstler.

France's oldest surviving WWI veteran, Louis de Cazenave, died in January, also aged 110.

The last of Germany's veterans from the war died also died in January.

Day of remembrance

Mr Ponticelli was born on 7 December 1897 in Emilia Romagna, northern Italy.

He made his way, at the age of nine, to France to join his two brothers, and worked in Paris as a chimney sweep and paper boy.

Mr Sarkozy said there would be a national day of remembrance for France's war dead in the coming days as he marked Mr Ponticelli's death.

"I salute the Italian boy who came to Paris to earn his living and chose to become French, first in August 1914 when he lied about his age to sign up at 16 for the Foreign Legion to defend his adopted homeland," the French president said in a statement.

"Then a second time in 1921, when he decided to remain here for good."

Mr Ponticelli, who lived with his daughter in a southern suburb of Paris, had initially refused a government offer of a state funeral, the AFP news agency reported.

But he later decided to accept "in the name of all those who died, men and women", during WWI.

"Poilu", a word meaning hairy or tough, is the affectionate name given since Napoleonic times to French foot soldiers.

Story from BBC NEWS

When did the last vet of the American Civil War die?

I was just reading through Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth yesterday, and the sheer grief, tempered by time but not rubbed any less raw by the time she wrote it, much less the time I read it, was almost overpowering.

The last civil war vet died in 1958.

the last letters of Henry James, tempered by the weight of the loss of hundreds of thousands of young men, are really poignant.

Baaderonix, I was going to post this story.

I love how he insisted on a modest and somber funeral.

I used to get rides on a tracter from a WWI vet when I was a little boy....

tractor

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/01/military.firstworldwar

Henry William Allingham is 112 tomorrow. and has been making plans for november...

I was just reading through Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth yesterday, and the sheer grief, tempered by time but not rubbed any less raw by the time she wrote it, much less the time I read it, was almost overpowering.

-- Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 12 March 2008 16:43 (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

This is a great book, sadly getting more neglected as time passes.

Bill Stone RIP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7824999.stm

"One of only four surviving British veterans of World War I has died at the age of 108.

William Stone, from Watlington in Oxfordshire, was the last British serviceman to have seen active duty in both world wars."

...

"The other known remaining British veterans of World War I are 112-year-old Henry Allingham and 110-year-old Harry Patch, who both live in Britain, and 107-year-old Claude Choules who lives in Australia."

Reading the headline in the Daily Mail makes it sound as if there are only two survivors: "Then there were two: First World War veteran dies, two months after surviving trio's salute at the Cenotaph.
Clearly the expat in Australia doesn't count because he's turned his back on Blighty and wasn't at the Cenotaph last November. Quitter!

Lazy bastard couldn't be bothered to come over from Australia, a slap in the face for "our boys"

112 years old!

The last veteran of the Iraq War will still be alive in the 23rd century if we stop starting wars and spend the money on keeping people alive.

Or if the Iraq War lasts 100 years.

Henry Allingham RIP. 113.

Obits
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/jul/18/obituary-henry-allingham
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/jul/18/henry-allingham

and for the sake of completeness, despite there being dedicated threads

RIP Harry Patch
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/world-war-one-veteran-harry-patch-dies-aged-111
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/harry-patch-wells-first-world-war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/gallery/2009/jul/26/harry-patch?picture=350807330

Happy birthday to Frank Buckles. 110 years old today

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — Frank Woodruff Buckles, Jefferson County’s most famous living citizen and the last surviving World War I doughboy, turns 110 years old Tuesday.

Buckles, who lives with his daughter, Susannah Buckles Flanagan, at Gap View, the family farm off old W.Va. 9, has been the subject of wide media and congressional attention in recent years.

In 2010, U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., co-sponsored a bill to rededicate and restore a monument in Washington, D.C., honoring the 500 or so District of Columbia residents who served in World War I. Their bill calls for authorizing a new sculpture to make the monument a national memorial honoring all 4.7 million Americans who served in the 1914-18 conflict, not just those from the nation’s capital.

Get the information you need fast. Sign up for our Breaking News alerts today.

There are national memorials in Washington, honoring veterans from World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, but none for World War I, said Jamie Corley, Capito’s spokesperson.

In 2008, Capito sponsored a bill to allow Buckles, upon his death, to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, Corley said.

“Mr. Buckles represents the very best of this country — service, determination and patriotism. He has lived through some of the most historic events in American history, from the Great Depression to two world wars to the invention of the Internet,” Capito said Monday in a statement.

“Congresswoman Capito wishes Frank Buckles happy birthday and said West Virginia is honored to call him one of our own,” Corley said.

Neither Frank nor Susannah Buckles could be reached for comment Monday.

A story in the May 30, 2010, edition of Parade magazine on Buckles said he lied about his age in 1917 when he was 16 so he could enlist. The Army sent him to France, where he drove ambulances and motorcycles. After the armistice, he helped return German prisoners of war to their country.

In 1941, he was working in Manila for the American President Line, a shipping company. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines during World War II, Buckles was captured and spent 3 1/2 years in a prisoner-of-war camp before he was rescued by American forces when they retook the Island nation.

David DeJonge, a Michigan filmmaker, is producing a documentary on Buckles’ life titled “Pershing’s Last Patriot: The Story of Frank Woodruff Buckles, America’s Last Veteran of World War I.”

It will be narrated by actor Richard Thomas.

DeJonge said Monday that Buckles will spend Tuesday at home enjoying his birthday.

RIP Frank Buckles

Aww, too bad.

Okay, he was the last living US vet...anyone from elsewhere still alive?

Article says that last two verified survivors are British.

i thought that must be out of date because Harry Patch died in july 2009 and he was lauded as the last.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Patch

"the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War."

but then it says right there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Choules (Seaman, now living in australia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Green (WRAF)

i guess that's slightly different to trench fighting.

RIP Claude Choules, the last combat veteran.

RIP Chuckles

man, RIP.

RIP

Belated revive for Florence Green

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/58364000/jpg/_58364841_florence_070212_still2_online.jpg

'World's last' WWI veteran Florence Green dies aged 110

7 February 2012 Last updated at 14:26 ET

A woman thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of World War I has died aged 110.

Florence Green, from King's Lynn, Norfolk, served as a mess steward at RAF bases in Marham and Narborough.

She died in her sleep on Saturday night at Briar House care home, King's Lynn. Mrs Green had been due to celebrate her 111th birthday on 19 February.

The world's last known combat veteran of World War I, Briton Claude Choules, died in Australia aged 110 in May 2011.

The last three World War I veterans living in the UK - Bill Stone, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch - all died in 2009.

This thread's tough to read:

Happy birthday to Frank Buckles. 110 years old today

― Stockhausen's Ekranoplan Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Tuesday, February 1, 2011

1 month passes...

RIP Frank Buckles

― Stockhausen's Ekranoplan Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Tuesday, March 1, 2011

i know! can't wait for the boomers

Nothing disappoints me more than the fact that I likely won't be around for the Last Boomer.

How many 19th century we got?

6 verified. In a year or two that link will be cut

(barring Calment-esque feats)

Woman born in Washington's first term dies during Teddy Roosevelt's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Ann_Neve

ye poole of deathe took a real hit there eh

I don't if this happened to any of you, but I swear I went to more funerals during 2000 than any other year before or since.

I doubt any of the old folks would've admitted to waiting the calendar out, but it sure seemed like it at the time.

This thread reminds me that it's been awhile since I've seen a "WORLD WAR I VETERAN" tag on a license plate.

Grace Jones (the UK's oldest person, born in 1899) lost her fiancé in the war:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2168755/Britains-oldest-woman-112-burgled-thug-pretended-delivery-driver.html

As a young woman, she fell in love and got engaged to her neighbour, Albert Rees, but the couple never married because he was killed in the First World War. Yesterday she said: 'He was sent out to the war. He was only with the young boys. He was only 19. He was in France just a few days and he was gone. His friend came to tell me he had been blown to pieces. A lot of the young ones gave their lives in that war.' When asked why she was never married, she said, 'I just never came across anybody who was as nice as he was. No one else came up to scratch.'

:(

those interviews on bbc2 tonight were just.....

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/14/french-soldier-room-unchanged-first-world-war?CMP=twt_gu

the poppies at the tower of london are worth a visit.