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  Last female veteran of the First World War dies aged 109 Last updated at 20:19pm on 29.08.08    Gladys Powers, 109, died this month in Canada. She was thought to be the last female veteran from WW1. The last female First World War veteran has died aged 109.British-born Gladys Powers died at her home in British Columbia, Canada, on August 14, the Ministry of Defence said.She was born in Lewisham, south London and joined the Women's Auxiliary Corps aged 15, after fibbing about her age and later served with the Women's RAF.  All but a few of the...

58 years later, records unsealed in Rosenberg spy case After 58 years, historians and journalists will have a chance to examine the secret grand jury testimony of witnesses in the espionage case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The couple was investigated in 1950, tried in 1951 for conspiracy to commit espionage and convicted and sentenced to death in 1953. Cold War scholars are hoping the grand jury transcripts will shed light on some nagging questions about the case -- primarily, just how strong the case was against Ethel Rosenberg. The National Security Archive, the American Historical Association, the Georgetown University...

American entrepreneur Gregg Bemis finally gets courts go-ahead to explore the wreck off IrelandIt is the best known shipwreck lying on the Irish seabed, but it is only today that the owner of the Lusitania will finally begin the first extensive visual documentation of the luxury liner that sank 93 years ago. Gregg Bemis, who bought the remains of the vessel for £1,000 from former partners in a diving business in 1968, has been granted an imaging licence by the Department of the Environment. This allows him to photograph and film the entire structure, and should allow him to produce...

Oldest female WW I veteran recounts her serviceWednesday, July 02, 2008Project Number:08-0333 Gladys Power, at 109 years old, is the last known woman who served in the First World War. She salutes all the troops overseas. Abbotsford, British Columbia – At age109 Gladys Power is a remarkable lady. With the First World war raging in Europe, everyone wanted to lend a hand and Gladys Power was no different. Fifteen years old and living in England in the summer of 1915, she lied about her age and signed up with the Women´s Auxiliary Army. At the time both men and women...

Professor John P. Maher reviews "July 1914: Soldiers, Statesmen, and the Coming of the Great War: A Brief Documentary History." Edited by Samuel R. Williamson and Russel Van Wyk. 2003. Bedford / St Martin's Press. A commonplace in recent books on the Balkans is to draw parallels between 1990s Serbia and the Third Reich. Williamson and Van Wyk confirm the consensus view that that Germany and Austria-Hungary started the Great War, but fail to pursue another parallel. They say nothing about activities of Germany and Austria in the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. But policy and press in those...

The oldest surviving veteran of World War I's trench warfare is celebrating his 110th birthday. Harry Patch, who was born in Combe Down, Somerset, was a plumber by trade before being called up. He was a private at the Battle of Passchendaele. A party is planned at the care home in Wells, where he now lives. Mr Patch attributes his long life to clean living, avoiding what he describes as the "three sins" of smoking, drinking and gambling. "For many years in Shropshire, I lived quite close to the Welsh mountains," he said. "Fresh air, no petrol and no cars,...

Should the Stars In Your Service Flag Turn To Gold (1918) lyrics by Dora F. Hendricks music by Charles H. Gabriel MIDI sequence os002.mid by John McDonnellShould the stars in your service flag turn to gold, If from somewhere in France comes the message you fear, Should the anguish of death on your heart be rolled, Creep close to God and you will hear His great heart throbbing, as soft and low He whispers: "Child, I know, I know! "Your very best for the world you've done: "I, also, gave my beloved Son, "I, also, gave my beloved Son." Like...

Henry Allingham, who was born in London on 6 June 1896, is also the last surviving original member of the Royal Air Force - formed 90 years ago... Now partially deaf and almost blind, Mr Allingham, who was born in Clapham, London, now lives at St Dunstan's home for blind ex-servicemen, in Ovingdean. His life has spanned six monarchs and has taken in 21 prime ministers. Mr Allingham is the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland in 1916, and also fought at the Somme and Ypres where he was bombed and shelled. He joined the Royal Air Force when...

5/27/2008 - PARIS (AFPN) -- Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley, along with several hundred American and French citizens, paid homage to a special group of World War I aviators May 24 at the Lafayette Escadrille memorial ceremony that took place outside of Paris. The Airmen of the Lafayette Escadrille were the United States' first combat aviators. It was an American squadron of volunteers who flew under the French flag during World War I. Many of them gave their lives in defense of French democracy. General Moseley said it is important that the aviation heroes be honored...

Frank Woodruff Buckles, the last known living American-born veteran of World War I, was honored Sunday at the Liberty Memorial during Memorial Day weekend celebrations. "I had a feeling of longevity and that I might be among those who survived, but I didn't know I'd be the No. 1," the 107-year-old veteran said at a ceremony to unveil his portrait. His photograph was hung in the main hallway of the National World War I Museum, which he toured for the first time, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States presented him with a gold medal of merit....

Numbers come precisely from the agile mind and nimble tongue of Frank Buckles, who seems bemused to say that 4,734,991 Americans served in the military during America’s involvement in the First World War and that 4,734,990 are gone. He is feeling fine, thank you for asking. The eyes of the last doughboy are still sharp enough for him to be a keen reader, and his voice is still deep and strong at age 107. He must have been a fine broth of a boy when, at 16, persistence paid off and he found, in Oklahoma City, an Army recruiter who...

Those unsung heroines of the Second World War, the Land Girls who kept the nation fed, are finally to reap their just reward. 'I thoroughly enjoyed it. I say to this day they were the best days of my life. I think I brought about 300 to 400 calves into this world' 'You had a lot of friendships. Boys were coming and going and losing their lives.' For those who entered the ranks of the Women's Land Army during the Second World War, it opened up an extraordinary - and brave - new world. Food and labour shortages meant that...

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. -- Numbers come precisely from the agile mind and nimble tongue of Frank Buckles, who seems bemused to say that 4,734,991 Americans served in the military during America's involvement in the First World War and 4,734,990 are gone. He is feeling fine, thank you for asking. The eyes of the last doughboy are still sharp enough for him to be a keen reader, and his voice is still deep and strong at age 107. He must have been a fine broth of a boy when, at 16, persistence paid off and he found, in Oklahoma City, an...

Our Troops Rock!  Thank you for all you do!   For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ~ Hall of Heroes ~Sgt. Alvin C. York             BIOGRAPHYAlvin Cullum York (1887-1964) ended the First World War as one of America's most famous soldiers, with fame and popular recognition assured following a remarkable act of courage and coolness in October 1918.Having grown up in poverty the young York honed his skills as a...

Insights into war and life from the last U.S. veteran of World War I "I realize now I was very young." Frank Buckles was 16 and lied about his age to the Army so he could enlist and go to Europe. It was 1917 and the country was facing the "war to end all wars." Now, at 107, he is America’s last living World War I veteran. At his farmhouse in West Virginia, he looks back at it all — driving ambulances in WWI, working on ships all over the world and surviving WWII in a prison camp — and...

Last World War I veteran shares war stories Thursday, May 15, 2008 Project Number:08-0091 SPOKANE, Washington – Jack Babcock is Canada´s only surviving veteran of the First World War. Though he´s proud to be recognized, he´s a little embarrassed by all the attention he has gotten lately, and he´ll tell you it´s because "I didn´t get to fight." He did his best to get to the trenches in France but after nearly three years in uniform, he only made it as far as England. The reason, which he gives up with some reluctance, is that he was only 15 years...

BRIMFIELD, Mass. -- It took a distant battle in a nearly forgotten war to bring former strangers from three states together in Dave Kornacki's living room. As they sat together on a recent Sunday afternoon, comparing notes and photographs, it was clear this was not a gathering of battle re-enactors or historians, but ordinary people with common purpose. A police detective, cardiac nurse, corporate attorney, real estate broker, full-time mom, financial executive, math teacher turned contractor, retired fire chief and a distributor of baked goods. They are linked by the accident of genealogy relatives of long-deceased World War I veterans...

Frank Buckles apparently doesn't intend to take the offer any time soon. At 107, he still does 50 sit ups a day and lifts weights three times a week. (MILWAUKIE, Ore.) - Ken Buckles, Executive Director of Oregon's Remembering America's Heroes, has won a long-fought battle – a battle centered around World War One. For twelve years, Buckles has been recognizing and honoring American Vets through his program at Milwaukie High School where he is also a teacher. But this time it was personal. Ken Buckles is related to Frank Buckles, America's last living WWI Veteran.

"European bankers and the dollar holocaust" OK, this article isn't finished yet, but I was thinking like "why not publish what I've written so far beforehand, the topic is a highly important one and people here on Free Republic aren't whiners, sure they'll forgive me for saving this draft for later forum abuse and instead I could go treat my sore European intellect to some Absolut and b-movies". I'm on holiday, actually. The unfinished article (please comment!!): "Personally, I'm not born of banking stock. My forebears here in Sweden (yes, I am, again, trying to write an article in English...

'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...

PARIS (AP) — France on Monday honored its last World War I veteran, who died last week, and all the other 8.4 million Frenchmen who fought in the conflict a century ago that tore Europe apart. The day of tribute began with a Roman Catholic funeral Mass attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, government ministers, soldiers and teary-eyed members of the family of Lazare Ponticelli. Ponticelli died last Wednesday at age 110. Born in Italy, Ponticelli was a French citizen for most of the past century. Worldwide, only a handful of veterans of the 1914-1918 war remain alive. Sarkozy decided...

PARIS - France's last remaining veteran of World War I died Wednesday at age 110 after outliving 8.4 million Frenchmen who fought in what they called "la Grande Guerre." Lazare Ponticelli, who was born in Italy but chose to fight for France and was a French citizen for most of the past century, died at his home in the Paris suburb of Kremlin-Bicetre, the national veterans' office said. "It is to him and his generation that we owe in large part the peaceful and pacified Europe of today. It is up to us to be worthy of that," President Nicolas...

Frank Woodruff Buckles was just 15 years old when he joined the U.S. Army. Soon, he was deployed to war and headed overseas on the Carpathia -- the same ship used in the rescue mission of the Titanic. He drove ambulances in Britain and France for soldiers wounded during World War I. A few decades later, Buckles was in the Philippines as a civilian, on December 7, 1941, the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. He was taken as a prisoner of war for 39 months in Manila, eating his meals out of a single tin cup. More than 60 years...

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2008 – Frank Woodruff Buckles lived an unassuming life for 105 years. That was until word got out that he was among the last of a generation that his countrymen only recently seemed to embrace. World War I veteran Frank Woodruff Buckles as featured in photographer David DeJonge's American Survivors of World War I portrait exhibit, donated to the Pentagon at a March 6, 2008, ceremony. Buckles, 107, is shown in his home library outside of Charles Town, W.Va. He is one of the last known surviving veterans of World War I. Copyrighted photo by David...

Today, the 107-year-old Frank Buckles—the last known U.S. military veteran to serve during World War I— was honored with a White House visit and was made the guest of honor at a ceremony at the Pentagon where portraits of Buckles and eight other World War I veterans were unveiled. “Mr. Buckles' mind is sharp, his memory is crisp, and he's been sharing with me some interesting anecdotes,” President Bush said during Buckles' Oval Office visit. “I asked him where he lived, and he said, that reminds me of what General Pershing asked me. And he told the General that he...

He fought the Kaiser with the U.S. Army during World War I. As a civilian working in the Philippines shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was taken prisoner of war and ate out of the same tin cup for his more than three-year-long imprisonment. Today, the 107-year-old Frank Buckles—the last known U.S. military veteran to serve during World War I— was honored with a White House visit and was made the guest of honor at a ceremony at the Pentagon where portraits of Buckles and eight other World War I veterans were unveiled. “Mr. Buckles' mind is sharp,...

WASHINGTON, March 6, 2008 – Defense Department officials honored one of the world’s last living World War I veterans in a ceremony at the Pentagon today. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, left, talks with Frank Buckles, 107, one of the last known living World War I veterans during a Pentagon ceremony March 6, 2008. Buckles was honored during the ceremony, which included the unveiling an exhibit of veterans' portraits by photographer David DeJonge. Defense Dept. photo by R. D. Ward  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “I feel honored to be here as a representative of the veterans of...

THE PRESIDENT: Sitting next to me is Mr. Frank Buckles, 107-years-young, and he is the last living Doughboy from World War I. And it has been my high honor to welcome Mr. Buckles, and his daughter, Susannah, here to the Oval Office. Mr. Buckles' mind is sharp, his memory is crisp, and he's been sharing with me some interesting anecdotes. I asked him where he lived, and he said, that reminds me of what General Pershing asked me. And he told the General that he was raised on a farm in Missouri. And the General said, well, you know, as...

A convicted Nazi war criminal arrived in Italy yesterday to start a life sentence imposed in his absence for the murder and torture of prisoners in the final year of the Second World War. Michael Seifert, 83, a Ukraine-born Canadian citizen dubbed the "Beast of Bolzano", has lived in Canada since 1951. He had been fighting extradition for eight years. The former SS corporal was a guard at a prison camp in Bolzano, northern Italy - used as a transit point for Jews, Italian resistance fighters and others - in 1944 and 1945. An Italian military tribunal convicted him in...

BERLIN - It was an American, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who famously reflected that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away." But the phrase seems to apply better to the quiet passing of a German believed to have been the country's last World War I veteran. Erich Kaestner died Jan. 1 in a nursing home in Cologne at the age of 107, his son told The Associated Press. When France's second-last surviving veteran from World War I, Louis de Cazenave, died Jan. 20, the news made international headlines. But in Germany — which lost both world wars and has had...

PARIS - World War I veteran Louis de Cazenave died Sunday at age 110, his son said, leaving just one known French survivor of the 1914-1918 conflict. De Cazenave, who took part in the Battle of the Somme, died in his home in Brioude in central France, said his son, also named Louis de Cazenave. "He died at his house, in his sleep, without suffering," the son said by telephone. He said his father was to be buried Tuesday in Brioude. The last known French veteran of World War I — known as "poilus," meaning hairy or tough — is...

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission will unveil plans in the coming months for a partnership between the European Union and China over Africa, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel said Wednesday. Michel said he would present the partnership plans after his first official visit to China in March amid mounting concern in Europe about the Asian giant's growing influence in the resource-rich continent.

During World War I, in the winter of 1914,the battlefields of Flanders, one of the most unusual events in all of human history took place. The Germans had been in a fierce battle with the British and French. Both sides were dug in, safe in muddy, man-made trenches six to eight feet deep that seemed to stretch forever. All of a sudden, German troops began to put small Christmas trees, lit with candles, outside of their trenches. Then, they began to sing songs. Across the way, in the "no man's land" between them, came songs from the British and French...

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — J. Russell Coffey, the oldest known surviving U.S. veteran of World War I, has died. The retired teacher, one of only three U.S. veterans from the "war to end all wars," was 109. Coffey died Thursday at the Briar Hill Health Campus in North Baltimore, where he had lived for the past four or five years, said Gaye Boggs, nursing director at the nursing home. No cause of death has been determined, she said Friday. His health began failing in October. "We're sure going to miss him," Boggs said. "He was our most famous resident, that's...

The last World War One veteran in Ohio -- and 1 of 3 known remaining U.S. veterans from World War I -- has died. A funeral home says J. Russell Coffey died yesterday at the age of 109. Coffey has been living in the Blakely Care Center in North Baltimore. Coffey didn't see action overseas. He enlisted in the Army while he was a student at Ohio State University in October 1918, a month before the Allied powers and Germany signed a cease-fire agreement. Coffey played semipro baseball, earned a doctorate in education from New York University, taught in high...

On the day the British call Remembrance Day, marking the end of the First World War, Harry Patch, 109, recalled his bloody days in the trenches. But in a message that will also resonate with American citizens and troops, Patch exhorted listeners to honor those serving in today's conflicts, and not wait years before doing so. We were the PBI. That's what we called ourselves. The poor bloody infantry. We didn't know whether we'd be dead or alive the next day, the next hour or the next minute. We weren't heroes. We didn't want to be there. We were scared....

PASSCHENDAELE, Belgium -- Canadian veteran Robert Firlotte, a special guest at ceremonies here Saturday marking the 90th anniversary of a bittersweet Canadian victory at the Battle of Passchendaele, experienced all the discomforts and horrors of war while serving in both the Second World War and the Korean War. But Firlotte, 90, was no less appalled than any other visitor here by various exhibits and memorials showing grim conditions faced by allied soldiers during a 100-day offensive in 1917 that resulted in almost half a million allied and German casualties. Soldiers, after sleeping in trenches or wet tunnels populated by rats...

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. -- Frank Woodruff Buckles kept up with some of his old World War I buddies -- and that's not a misprint, we don't mean "World War II buddies" -- through a veterans newsletter called The Torch. "On each issue ... 4,734,991 American veterans fought in World War I," Buckles recited from memory. "Today, there are ... and then there would be some number. When it got down to just a few, I thought, 'Hey, I'm going to be one of the last.' " Today, on Veterans Day, Buckle, 106, is one of three surviving American-born World War...

Ahead of Remembrance Sunday, Britain's surviving World War I veterans talked to Charles Wheeler for the BBC's Ten O'Clock News about their memories of the conflict. Harry Patch Harry Patch, who is 109 years old, was called up for service in 1917 when he worked as an 18-year-old apprentice plumber in Bath. Harry Patch's story Mr Patch fought at the battle of Passchendaele in Belgium - a conflict that lasted three months and cost nearly 500,000 lives on both sides. That summer was one of the wettest on record and no-man's land became a sea of mud where men drowned...

Ninety years ago this month, the first Americans died in World War I. Thomas Enright of Pittsburgh was one of the three. Here is the story of a forgotten hero. Sunday, November 11, 2007 Soldiers & Sailors Military Museum and Memorial The funeral procession for Thomas Enright leaving Soldiers & Sailors in Oakland, July 16, 1921.Thomas Enright was born May 8, 1887, on Taylor Street in Bloomfield. He was the seventh child (fourth surviving child) of Ellen and her considerably older husband, John Enright. Thomas was their first child not born in their native Ireland. He spent his youth on...

CALGARY -It's a sure bet that not many Canadians under 50 could tell you much about the Battle of Passchendaele. For a few of us, it might ring vaguely familiar -- a place once spotted in some long-ago textbook or overheard on a television documentary, likely recalled more for its odd sounding name than for its significance. It's a battle "lost to Canadian history" as Calgary-based historian Norman Leach puts it, obscured by the shadow of the fabled Vimy Ridge. But as defining accounts of Canadian military exceptionality go, it may be more compelling. Passchendaele has occupied Paul Gross's thoughts...

By Jasper Copping Last Updated: 1:29am BST 16/09/2007 He was a young man, like so many others, who fell on the battlefield at Passchendaele. Aged just 29, Private Jack Hunter died in the arms of his younger brother, Jim, who buried him there, on the front line, in a shallow grave. Jack Hunter, who died at Passchendaele, with his brother Jim Jack Hunter, who died in the first world war, with his brother Jim Once the guns had fallen silent, Jim returned to look for his brother's body, but the ground had been chewed up by artillery and he could...

"Help Save the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery It's hard to believe, but officials at Arlington National Cemetery plan to replace the original Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with a new replica solely because of repairable cosmetic imperfections. This 1932 monument is nationally significant and eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The 48-ton marble block has two nonstructural cracks which pose no threat to visitors or the historic structure. Surprisingly, federal administrators want the replica carved from new stone that experts agree will likely again crack along its grain just as marble...

CAMP MABRY, Texas (Sept. 6, 2007) – The Texas Military Forces will honor the Choctaw Code Talkers of World War I during events here at the Brig. Gen. John C.L. Scribner Texas Military Forces Museum Sept. 16 beginning at 2 p.m. Less well known than the Navajo Code Talkers in the Pacific theater of operations in World War II, the Choctaws pioneered the U.S. military’s use of a Native American language to baffle enemy code-breakers.Lt. Gen. Charles G. Rodriguez, Adjutant General of Texas, will present 18 Lone Star Medals of Valor to the families of the Choctaw Code Talkers. In...

First World War tunnels to yield their secrets By Jasper Copping, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 1:42am BST 26/08/2007 As battle raged across the fields of Flanders, British soldiers found brief respite from the horrors of the First World War in "underground towns" far below the mud and gore. Now, more than 90 years after the armies left and the extraordinary networks of tunnels were flooded, the task of finally revealing their secrets has begun. The Tunnels The prize, archaeologists and historians believe, is an unprecedented insight into the lives of British troops on the Western Front. They believe that, because...

She stood alone in the sodden field on the outskirts of Paris, her fashionable ankle boots firmly planted in the mud churned up by the cavalry who drilled there. No, she would not be tied to the stake, she told her executioners politely. And nor would she allow them to blindfold her. She faced the barrels of the firing squad without flinching. Earlier, at 5am, they had woken her in her filthy cell in the Prison de Saint-Lazare to tell her this was the day she would die. She dressed in her best - stockings, a low-cut blouse under a...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1, 2007 – While Army nurse Linnie Leckrone was patching up wounded soldiers in France on the front lines of World War I, she most likely wasn’t thinking that her actions one day would merit the military’s third-highest award for valor in the face of the enemy. Army Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, acting Army surgeon general and chief of the Army Nurse Corps, presents the Silver Star to Mary Jane Bolles Reed, who accepts it on behalf of her deceased mother, World War I Army nurse Linnie Leckrone, July 31, 2007. Photo by Fred W. Baker...

You have to strain to hear Harry Patch. At 109 years old, the last surviving Tommy from the horrors of the trenches in the First World War is growing increasingly frail. But his mind is every bit as sharp today as it was 90 years ago this week when, as a 19-year-old conscript, he was ordered over the top at the Third Battle of Ypres. The battle, better known simply as Passchendaele, has become a byword for senseless slaughter. Bitter memories: Harry Patch at Passchendaele today Read more... Hell on Earth: The never before seen colour photographs of the bloody...

French adjutant-chief Eugene Rouges died with several of his men when a German artillery shell exploded in their trench, on Nov. 16, 1916. But their spirits live on in Gradesnica. More than 90 years later, visitors are still drawn to this former World War I battlefield, a remote mountain village in southern Macedonia, where the lure is more than military history: A liquid fortune in vintage cognac and wine lies buried in the old trenches. Stefan Kovacevski, 64, is one of the Gradesnica residents who tasted the French army rations that have matured into an exquisite elixir. "At first we...