Last Surviving WWI Veterans

[Don Wassall]

Something that came to mind on Veterans Day and a subject that has always interested me is the last surviving soldiers from long ago wars.


In the 1980s I can remember periodically running across articlesthat detailed the dwindling number of survivors of the Spanish American War of 1898. The last reputed living veteran of that war was Jones Morgan, a black who died in 1993 at the age of 110. It should be noted that the birthdates of aged blacks are often unreliable.


The last living veteran of the 1861-'65War Between the States died in 1959.


According to Wikipedia, there are just 19 U.S. veterans of World War I still alive. The oldest is 114; the youngest is 104.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_veterans_of_the_First _World_War#United_States


Now even the youngest WWII vets are pushing 80. Hard to believe. . .

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Yeah, this is sad. They say less than 1/4 of the 16 million US WWII vets are still alive. My grandfather was almost 84 when he died last month, and he was over there for 3 1/2 years. I too often think about the last WWI vets. BTW, there are 5 real sons of Confederate Veterans still alive in Mississippi. There are just a handful of Doughboys left in England too.Edited by: Colonel_Reb

 

[Don Wassall]

Incredible as it sounds, Alberta Martin, the last surviving widow of a Confederate veteran died just last year. That was a sad day for all Southern patriots.


http://www.confederate-rose.org/widow-Alberta_Martin.htm

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Actually Don, she wasn't the last! I thought she was too, but around the time she died, the past of Mrs. Maudie Celia Hopkins became known. She married a CSA Veteran in 1934. He died 3 1/2 years later. She still lives by herself in East Arkansas. I visited with her and interviewed her last fall. She is something else. The Daughters of the Confederacy recognized her as the only known living Confederate Widow. She applied for and received the Arkansas state pension for dependents of Confederate Veterans beginning in October of last year. She is now 90 years old, but still very much alive! We still have that living link!

 

[Don Wassall]

That's just tremendous. To have a living link to a war that ended over 140 years ago, wow!

 

[foreverfree]

I tried asking about living WWI vets on FreeRepublic (where I use my CF handle) and my thread was pulled BION.

John

 

[White Shogun]

What's BION?

 

[GWTJ]

If anyone ever gets to visit the Inner Harbor in Baltimore take time to visit the submarine they have on display from WWII. When I visited it they had a WWII veteran down below answering questions. My friends and I talked with him for over an hour. Absolutely fascinating!!!! A true American hero. And in excellent shape, not an ounce of fat.

 

[Gary]

It is very sad to think of all the White Males who died in wars, they never had a chance to have a family. Worldwide there must have been many millions of White men who never got to live out there lives. How many great men of medicine, sports, science, music, etc did we miss? It's sad to think most were killed by other White men. Our homelands here and in Europe are now being over run by non-productive deadbeats who are not White. These governments killed many of our brothers only to replace them with bums from the 3rd world. We should have many more White men in America if the many thousands from just the Civil War could have had sons. Can you imagine more Russian Boxers? With 27 million dead from just WW2, how many more Oleg Maskaev's could we have?
When I was a Marine years ago I thought, why am I serving with so many blacks who couldn't care less about me and at a moment's notice be asked to kill White Russians or Germans so blacks could still get Affirmative Action over me when we get back home?

 

[Colonel_Reb]

That last sentence pretty much sums it up, Gary. It is a deep sinking feeling inside.

 

[Don Wassall]

And now there's just three U.S. WWI vets still alive. From AP:


Lloyd Brown, the last known surviving World War I U.S. Navy veteran, has died. He was 105.. . His death comes days after the death of the last known surviving American female World War I veteran, Charlotte L. Winters, 109.


The deaths leave three known survivors who served in the Army, and a fourth who lives in Washington State but served in the Canadian army, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. . .

 

[son of Radovan]

Thank you for that update - as sombre as it is. To all of them, those remaining and those departed my eternal gratitude and respect; those who are gone, who either left on the battlefield so long ago now, or within the last year, rest in peace.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

I imagine the last ones won't live more than a couple of years at best.

 

[white is right]

Something that came to mind on Veterans Day and a subject that has always interested me is the last surviving soldiers from long ago wars.


In the 1980s I can remember periodically running across articles that detailed the dwindling number of survivors of the Spanish American War of 1898. The last reputed living veteran of that war was Jones Morgan, a black who died in 1993 at the age of 110. It should be noted that the birthdates of aged blacks are often unreliable.


The last living veteran of the 1861-'65 War Between the States died in 1959.


According to Wikipedia, there are just 19 U.S. veterans of World War I still alive. The oldest is 114; the youngest is 104.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_veterans_of_the_First _World_War#United_States


Now even the youngest WWII vets are pushing 80. Hard to believe. . .

I recall the last surviving Boer War veteran dieing around the mid 90's and he was 110+ plus. He actually made the papers as he marched until the end in the Toronto parade. at about 112 he was still lifting weights.....

The Canadian living in Washington State is a real marvel he graduated high school at the age of 95.

It's amazing how age isn't a barrier for these men....

Edited by: white is right

 

[Don Wassall]

Now the number is just two. J. Russell Coffey died the other day at 109, leaving Frank Buckles, 106 and Harry Landis, 108, as the last two living U.S. veterans of WWI. When I started this thread two years ago there was 19.


The last surviving Canadian who fought in the war, John Babcock, 107, lives in Spokane.

 

[Don Wassall]

Harry Landis has died, leaving Frank Buckles as the solesurviving U.S. WWI veteran.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Wow! That is sad. I wonder if Mr. Buckles will make it to 2009? Maybe so.

 

[Menelik]

Heres an article about Mr. Buckles. I'm hoping that I can make it to 50.

Last WWI Vet

 

[DixieDestroyer]

We need to garner all the information and history from the WWII veterans that we can. It's a shame that the WWI generation of "Blackjack" Pershing & Alvin York are almost totally gone.

I remember my Grandad telling me when he was a kid, there were a few old men that used to sit outside the general store in town and whittle & chat. His Daddy told him that oldest one (Grandad guessed he was in his late 80s) was a CSA veteran who'd fought in the Battle of Chickamauga (which halted the Union advance) under General Bragg in 1863. Some of my kin on my maternal grandmother's side fought in the CSA as well. Edited by: DixieDestroyer

 

[screamingeagle]

I was surprised to find that the widow of James Longstreet lived long enough to help build B-29 bombers in WW II!

 

[Colonel_Reb]

I just heard a story on NPR about Mr. Buckles. They played part of an interview with him. He's 107 and still seems to have good mental abilities. He was a POW in the Philippines during WWII. He just happened to be working there as a civilian when the Japanese took over. He was imprisoned for over 3 years there. Quite a remarkable life.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

I know this is a side issue that came up in this thread a long time ago, but I thought it worth mentioning, Mrs. Maudie Celia Hopkins, the only publicly known Confederate widow, has died at age 93. I met and interviewed her back in October 2004. I still have her and her daughter's phone numbers in my old cell phone. One correctionI included inthis article is that she was actually 20 when she married Mr. Cantrell. Another thing to remember when reading this is that a lot of reporters bombarded her after she became the last known Confederate widow and I'm almost positive they peppered her with guilt type questions and negative remarks about her husband being a soldier of the South. She expressed no such guilt to me when I interviewed her. I wish I could be there in Lexafor her funeral today.



<H1>Widow of Confederate soldier dies at 93</H1>
By PEGGY HARRIS - 12 hours ago


LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) â€â€￾ Maudie White Hopkins, who grew up during the Depression in the hardscrabble Ozarks and married a Confederate army veteran 67 years her senior, has died. She was 93.


Hopkins, the mother of three children from a second marriage who loved to make fried peach pies and applesauce cakes, died Sunday at a hospital in Helena-West Helena, said Rodger Hooker of the Roller-Citizens Funeral Home.


Other Confederate widows are still living, but they don't want any publicity, Martha Boltz of the United Daughters of the Confederacy said Tuesday.


Hopkins grew up in a family of 10 children, did laundry and cleaned house for William M. Cantrell, an elderly Confederate veteran in Baxter County whose wife had died years earlier.


When he offered to leave his land and home to her if she would marry him and care for him in his later years, she said yes. She was 20; he was 86.


"After Mr. Cantrell died I took a little old mule he had and plowed me a vegetable garden and had plenty of vegetables to eat. It was hard times; you had to work to eat," she said in an Associated Press interview in 2004.


Hopkins later married Winfred White and started a family. In all, she was married four times.


For decades, she didn't speak about her marriage to Cantrell, concerned that people would think less of her. Four years ago, she came around after a Confederate widow in Alabama died amid claims that she was the last widow from that war.


"I didn't do anything wrong," Hopkins told the AP in 2004. "I've worked hard my whole life and did what I had to, what I could, to survive. I didn't want to talk about it for a while because I didn't want people to gossip about it. I didn't want people to make it out to be worse than it was."


Military records show Cantrell served in Company A, French's Battalion, of the Virginia Infantry. He enlisted in the Confederate army at age 16 in Pikeville, Ky., and was captured the same year and sent to a prison camp in Ohio. He was exchanged for a Northern prisoner, and after the war moved to Arkansas to live with relatives.


In the interview, Hopkins referred to her first husband as "Mr. Cantrell" and described him as "a good, clean, respectable man." She recalled one description he gave of life as a Civil War soldier, how lice infested his sock supports and "ate a trail around his legs."


Baxter County records show they were married in January 1934 by a justice of the peace. She said Cantrell supported her with his Confederate pension of "$25 every two or three months" and left her his home when he died in 1937.


The pension benefits ended at Cantrell's death, according to records filed with the state Pension Board.


She is survived by two daughters and a son.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

World's Oldest Man, British WWI Veteran, Dies at 113</span>



By Howard Mustoe






July 18 (Bloomberg) -- Henry Allingham, the world's oldest
man and one of the U.K.'s two remaining World War I veterans,
died aged 113, the care home where he spent his last years said.


Allingham, who served with the Royal Naval Air Service
during the 1914-1918 conflict, had "a great spirit of fun and
represented the last of a generation who gave a very great deal
for us,"Â Robert Leader, chief executive officer of St Dunstan's
Care Home, at Ovingdean, East Sussex, said in an e-mailed
statement today. "Henry made many friends among the residents
and staff at St Dunstan's. He was a great character and will be
missed."Â


Allingham, who died peacefully in his sleep at 3:10 a.m.,
attributed his longevity to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild
women,"Â the Independent newspaper reported on June 20, the day
after he became the world's oldest man following the death at
113 of Japanese national Tomoji Tanabe.


"For one of his age, his vigor for life was extraordinary,"Â
Defense Minister Kevan Jones said of Allingham in an e-mailed
statement. "I was humbled to meet somebody who has led such an
amazing life and we owe such debt of gratitude to him and his
generation. My thoughts are with his family."Â


The world's oldest person is 115-year-old Gertrude Baines,
who was born in Georgia on April 6, 1894, according to the Los
Angles-based Gerontology Research Group's Web site. It says the
oldest man is now Minnesota-born Walter Breuning, aged 112.
Allingham's death means Harry Patch, aged 111, is Britain's last
survivor of the Great War.


‘State Funeral'


Allingham and Patch "should receive a state funeral after
all they did for the country,"Â said Jim Hume, 55, secretary of
the Dumbarton, Scotland-based Armed Forces Veterans Association.
"They represent the last of their generation who gave it all
up,"Â he said in a telephone interview.


Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid tribute to Allingham, who
served at Ypres and witnessed the battle of Jutland.


"I had the privilege of meeting Henry many times,"Â Brown
said. "He was a tremendous character, one of the last
representatives of a generation of tremendous characters. My
thoughts are with his family as they mourn his passing but
celebrate his life."Â


‘National Treasure'


The Prince of Wales described Allingham as "one of our
nation's historic treasures"Â and "a quiet, genial man."Â


Writing the foreword to Allingham's autobiography,
"Kitchener's Last Volunteer,"Â published in 2008, Prince Charles
said "his life has encapsulated mankind's prolific and speedy
acceleration into the modern era as we know it."Â


In November 2008, Allingham attended ceremonies to mark the
90th anniversary of the end of World War I, the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8157128.stm" target="_blank">British
Broadcasting Corp.</a> reported. "I saw too many things I would like
to forget but I never will forget them, I never can forget
them,"Â the BBC quoted him as saying before the event.


Patch, speaking from Fletcher House care home in Wells,
England, said he was "very sad at losing a friend,"Â the
broadcaster said.


Allingham, whose wife Dorothy died in 1970 after 53 years
of marriage, had two daughters, six grandchildren, 16 great-
grandchildren, 21 great-, great-grandchildren and one great-,
great-, great-grandchild. He met Dorothy, a nurse, when he was
admitted to hospital in the English town of Yarmouth with a
cracked rib during World War I, the Daily Telegraph reported.


He was granted a doctorate in engineering from Southampton
Solent University, made an honorary freeman of Brighton and
Hove, an honorary member of the Royal Navy Association and
received a Legion d'Honneur, founded in 1802 by <a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=NapoleonABonaparte&amp;site=wnews&amp;client=wnews&amp;proxystylesheet=wnews&amp;output=xml_no_dtd&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8&amp;filter=p&amp;getfields=wnnis&amp;sort=date:S:d1" target="_blank">Napoleon
Bonaparte</a>, the BBC reported.


To contact the reporter on this story:
Howard Mustoe in London at
hmustoe@bloomberg.net.




Last Updated: July 18, 2009 09:36 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&amp;sid=aqfmfqXR.f2Q

 

[foreverfree]

What's BION?

BION: Believe It Or Not

John

 

[Don Wassall]

I just heard a story on NPR about Mr. Buckles. They played part of an interview with him. He's 107 and still seems to have good mental abilities. He was a POW in the Philippines during WWII. He just happened to be working there as a civilian when the Japanese took over. He was imprisoned for over 3 years there. Quite a remarkable life.

Frank Bucklestestified at a Senate hearing:

Last American WWI survivor seeks memorial in DC

Ninety years after surviving World War I and 60 years after enduring a Japanese prisoner of war camp, Frank Woodruff Buckles on Thursday emerged unscathed from a Senate hearing.


The only living American-born veteran of World War I, now 108, was on Capitol Hill to lend his support for legislation, named in his honor, to dedicate a World War I memorial on the National Mall.


"An excellent idea," Buckles told a panel of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.


Before the hearing, Buckles, wearing a ribbon commemorating his service, was greeted and shook hands with a procession of senators, including subcommittee chairman Mark Udall, D-Colo., and his home-state senator, Democrat Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, followed by a group of high school students serving as Senate pages.


Buckles, born in 1901, talked his way into the Army at age 16. He drove ambulances and motorcycles and helped return prisoners of war to Germany after the armistice. He was working as a civilian for an American shipping company when he was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942 and spent three years in a prison camp.


His daughter Susannah Buckles Flanagan, who lives with him on a farm in Charles Town, W.Va., said her father, who uses a wheelchair, now has difficulty hearing but still enjoys reading and exercise every day.


The centenarian is lending his name to legislation that would rededicate a monument now honoring District of Columbia World War I veterans as a memorial for the more than 4 million Americans who served in the war. The Mall already has memorials honoring veterans of World War II and the conflicts in Vietnam and Korea.


The legislation has competition: Missouri lawmakers are promoting a measure that has passed the House that would designate Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Mo., as the National World War I Memorial. Gen. John Pershing and four Allied military leaders attended the dedication of that 217-foot structure in 1921.


The National World War I Museum, designated by Congress as the war's official museum, opened at Liberty Memorial in 2006.


Paul Strauss, a District of Columbia politician who advocates giving D.C. citizens a vote in Congress, also objected to a national takeover of the local monument, saying it "diminishes an already disenfranchised population."
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=596&amp;sid=1829819