Posted on 06/05/2009 10:52:39 PM PDT by Deo volente
The oldest survivor of the First World War, Henry Allingham, is celebrating his 113th birthday with a party organised by the Royal Navy.
The veteran soldier also holds the record as the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland, the last surviving member of the Royal Naval Air Service and the last surviving founding member of the Royal Air Force.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
It really is amazing to think that there is somone alive today that was at Jutland.
I vote we make him king of the world.
Interesting, sounds kind of cool.
Happy birthday to him, a year older than my grandfather would’ve been, a WW1 veteran of the Royal Army.
Happy birthday, Mr. Allingham, congratulations, and thank you.
He was also present at the Battle of the Somme, which killed more than 19,000 British soldiers on the first day alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk_R303aoso
It is forgotten.
I know the Somme, what an unimaginable bloodbath that was. Didn’t realize he was there too! What this man has seen in his lifetime.
yeap and just think he could of met someone that met George III.
*fixed*
Interesting, sounds kind of cool.
Based on what I believe a Brit who still had some 'nads would say...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2265992/posts
What was the link to?
from an article published in 2007:
EXCERPT:
Henry is a very, very old boy indeed. The oldest in Europe. Exactly 90 years have passed since he flew over the trenches of the Somme in the back seat of an aircraft. The pilot was hit by rifle fire from below and began to pass out. The ground came up fast but Henry survived the crash landing. He knew he had to haul his friend out of the cockpit before the engine fumes caught fire and they were both burned alive. He had seen that happen to other people, before his helpless eyes.
“Bunny Edwards!” he shouts suddenly, startling the only other resident in the lounge. That was the pilot’s name. “Beautiful swimmer,” says Henry. His milky, half-blind eyes are weepy. “I pulled him out of that plane. He had a bullet in the groin.”
Bunny died. So have so many other men and women over the years, from the young friends Henry left behind in the mud of the First World War to those killed in service more recently...
“Those were my pals,” says Henry. “They gave all they had. They can’t speak for themselves, so I have to.” With his last breath. And when he is gone, as he surely will be soon, will we still remember the Great War in the same way? “I don’t think so, no,” says Aircraft Mechanic Second Class Allingham, almost ready to stand at ease, at last. “But I have done my best.”
It is the British Army - Royal Navy and Royal Airforce but British Army.
This is because the British Army is an Army of Parliament, not of the Crown, authority to establish a standing army being assigned to Parliament in the Bill of Rights of 1689.
This man was a toddler when the airplane was invented by the Wright brothers.
Extraordinary.
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