Posted on 01/15/2002 4:49:47 PM PST by dighton
ALBERT ALEXANDRE, who has died aged 100, was the last veteran of the First World War resident at the Royal Hospital Chelsea; in 1999 France made him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
Alexandre enlisted at 15 in October 1917 and was just 16 when his regiment, the Guernsey Light Infantry, which had recently lost 700 men, moved back into the line at Passchendaele.
There Alexandre was thrown into the bloodiest of fighting, worse, he said, than anything he had been led to expect by his more experienced comrades.
Even the elements seemed to conspire with the horrors of war to make life hellish. In icy conditions and under constant bombardment, with men being blown to pieces around them, Alexandre's battalion lived in waterlogged trenches which regularly caved in, forcing them to take cover in mud-filled shell holes which were no cover at all.
Respirators had to be worn for long periods against the persistent threat of gas attacks whose effects Alexandre did not wholly escape.
A brief respite at Poperinghe was followed by intense preparation for a new German offensive, which forced Alexandre's battalion to withdraw as Passchendaele was outflanked.
They made a stand but, to avoid being isolated, again withdrew until the Germans could no longer keep up the pressure. By now, Alexandre's battalion had lost over half its men, dead or wounded.
Alexandre, a physically strong man, survived all of this, including the fiercest hand-to-hand fighting, unscathed. He was brought down by trench fever, convalescing on a French farm which provided horses for the Army.
He rejoined his battalion on its way back to the line, just in time for the Armistice which made everyone including Alexandre literally jump for joy. He was alive and still in one piece, his natural simplicity and directness having served him well in the kill-or-be-killed situations he had for months lived through.
Albert Edouard Alexandre was born on October 6 1901, at Longueville on Jersey, the youngest of four children of a French father and a mother of English ancestry.
When he was six both his parents died within a short space of time and he lived in an orphanage until he was 12, when his elder sister briefly took him in. He then lodged with a motherly old lady and, to help out, worked as a driller with the Channel Islands Granite Company.
When war came, Alexandre, although only 13, was soon doing dangerous blasting work. He looked older than his years, and was taunted for not being in uniform, so he enlisted into the Guernsey Light Infantry, joining his battalion in France where he helped protect Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.
In 1919, Alexandre was discharged, but the Army had been like a home to him so he quickly re-enlisted into the Royal Garrison Artillery. Soon he was in India, and after a year, in Malta, where the Army gave him the education he had never had.
Then, when the Allies sided with the Greeks against the Turks, who had not signed the peace treaty, by encouraging them to occupy Smyrna, war again seemed possible.
Alexandre's battery was therefore moved to Chenak in 1922 but stood down when a sensible British GOC, General Harington, did a deal with the commander of the much superior Turkish forces.
Back in Malta, and now a Lance Sergeant, Alexandre married a Dutch Jewish girl, Dorothy Axcell, whom he took to India. There his battery, with pack mules, moved to the Khyber Pass as a show of strength in a still uncertain situation following recent operations in Waziristan against the wily Fakir of Ipi.
Nothing happened, but Alexandre learned much about the handling of guns in testing conditions. Two children were born to the Alexandres in India, the younger, a boy, dying of pneumonia.
By now Alexandre was finishing his time but in 1939 there was no question of being released and, back in England, he was given charge of a training centre, as a battery quarter master sergeant, with 200 members of the Auxiliary Territorial Service under him. Meanwhile, a second son died, of polio.
When a daughter was born in 1942, Alexandre hoped to remain in England. However, with India under threat, his superiors persuaded him that the Army had need of his experience. Dutiful as ever, he was soon in jungly country at Chinwara, showing how to transport guns in rough conditions.
By 1945 Alexandre was a regimental quartermaster sergeant running a rest camp at Poona, and soon rejoined his unit in England, on discharge. He quickly found work as a programme chaser with a light aircraft factory. He retired in 1969.
His wife died in 1992, and he moved to the Royal Hospital Chelsea in 1994. He liked being among soldiers again, while being free to be himself. But unable to forget the loss of so many comrades in the Great War, he was careful not to get too close to anyone.
Still fit, he was doing press-ups at 97, and only partial blindness and deafness slowed him down. As a First War veteran he was often interviewed and invited out.
He showed amazing stamina at regimental reunions, drinking with the best (although usually abstemious) and dancing well into the night. He also revisited Ypres and met the Queen.
His two daughters survive him.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2001.
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