Feuer Frei!
05-05-11, 03:04 AM
CLAUDE Stanley Choules, the last known combat veteran of World War I, has died in Perth. His daughter Daphne Edinger told The Associated Press that British-born Choules - nicknamed "Chuckles" by comrades - died in a nursing home on Thursday. He was 110.
Choules joined the British navy as a teenager and served on the battleship HMS Revenge, from which he watched the 1918 surrender of the German High Seas Fleet.
He later migrated to Australia and served in the military for more than 40 years.
According to the Order of the First World War, a group that tracks veterans, Choules and another Briton, Florence Green, were the last known surviving service members from the conflict. Green served as a waitress in the Women's Royal Air Force.
On his birthday his son, Adrian, told AAP his father was not excited about the the attention he received as the last surviving war combat veteran.
"He's a celebrity ... but that's only because everyone else has died," he said.
"He served in two wars but he hated war. He just saw it as a job."
Ms Edinger, 84, said her father was loved by everyone.
"It's going to be sad to think of him not being here any longer, but that's the way things go," she told AP.
http://i55.tinypic.com/wkok7k.jpg
SOURCE (http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/choules-last-wwi-combat-vet-has-died/story-e6frfku0-1226050481520)
RIP Sir, thank you for your service :salute:
Choules joined the British navy as a teenager and served on the battleship HMS Revenge, from which he watched the 1918 surrender of the German High Seas Fleet.
He later migrated to Australia and served in the military for more than 40 years.
According to the Order of the First World War, a group that tracks veterans, Choules and another Briton, Florence Green, were the last known surviving service members from the conflict. Green served as a waitress in the Women's Royal Air Force.
On his birthday his son, Adrian, told AAP his father was not excited about the the attention he received as the last surviving war combat veteran.
"He's a celebrity ... but that's only because everyone else has died," he said.
"He served in two wars but he hated war. He just saw it as a job."
Ms Edinger, 84, said her father was loved by everyone.
"It's going to be sad to think of him not being here any longer, but that's the way things go," she told AP.
http://i55.tinypic.com/wkok7k.jpg
SOURCE (http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/choules-last-wwi-combat-vet-has-died/story-e6frfku0-1226050481520)
RIP Sir, thank you for your service :salute: