The Last Tommy: In Memoriam
I was so sad to learn that the last World War I Trenches Veteran, Harry Patch, has sadly passed away at the age of 111. Mr Patch, born 1898, was conscripted into the Army and served in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Regiment aged 18. He fought in the Battle of Passchendaele at Ypres in 1917 in which more than 70,000 British soldiers died. He was wounded there in a shell explosion that killed his three best friends.
Patch was one of the last three surviving British veterans of the First World War, and along with Claude Choules and Henry Allingham- who sadly passed away only a week ago- and also one of the last four worldwide.
Now with Mr Patch's death, the horrors of the Trenches during the Great War has passed from living memory to history. But their sacrifice will not be forgotten.
God bless you and keep you and may you rest in peace. And protect all those Service men and women on Active Duty.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”