In the British papers today, Harry Patch variously is described (in this case by his biographer, Richard van Emden) as "the oldest man in Britain, the last Tommy, the last foot soldier of the First World War, the last man to serve in the trenches in the ?war to end all wars?, the last of that fighting breed."
But he spoke of his experiences only after age 100. And he was "vehemently anti-war," according to the remembrance on the UK ITN TV channel:
Of the War, he said "It wasn't worth it."
I looked through many of the obits and remembrances today, but besides the quite good one by van Emden, I found in the UK and elsewhere no piece as gripping as that written by Robert Barr for the Associated Press:
"I didn't welcome the war at all, and never felt the need to get myself into khaki and go out there fighting before it was 'all over by Christmas.' That's what people were saying, that the war wouldn't last long," he said.
His most vivid memory of the war was of encountering a comrade whose torso had been ripped open by shrapnel. "Shoot me," Patch recalled the soldier pleading.
The man died before Patch could draw his revolver.
"I was with him for the last 60 seconds of his life. He gasped one word ? 'Mother.' That one word has run through my brain for 88 years. I will never forget it."
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