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No one knows how many veterans of the Great War are still alive. In 1918 and 1919 they came home, their bodies and souls scratched and wounded. Today just a few of them are still alive. In a couple of years time all eyewitnesses of the First World War will be dead.
The majority of those who are still alive today were kid-soldiers. They joined the forces underage (below 18) and usually lied about their real age and sometimes also about their real name.
Below some very old soldiers who faded away in the 21st century.
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Erich Kästner (left, undated picture) was believed to be the last remaining German soldier who served in the Great War. He died on January 1, 2008, in a nursing home in Cologne. He was 107 years old. |
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René Riffaud (left), the last surviving poilu (common soldier) from Normandy, France, died on January 15, 2007, in Tosny. |
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Moses Hardy (left), the last black American veteran of the Great War, died on December 7, 2006 in a nursing home in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. |
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William (Duke) Procter (left), one of Canada's last veterans of the First World War, died aged 106 on December 14th, 2005, at the Oakside Manor residential care facility in Enderby. |
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Hermann Dörnemann (left) became 111 years old. He was for more than three months the oldest man in the world. Then he contracted pneumonia and died on Wednesday 2nd February 2005, just three months before his 112th birthday. |
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Tom Kirk (on the picture with his daughter June) died on Tuesday 9th November 2004. He was 106 years old. In 1917 he was called up to join the Royal Navy, from studies at Newcastle Medical School. After just weeks of training he was named surgeon probationer and posted to HMS Lydiard until the end of the war, when he returned to complete his medical training. |
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Marcel Caux (left) died on August 21 2004 in a nursing home in Sydney, Australia. He was 105 years old. |
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Arno Wagner (left) died in Germany on 22nd December 2004 at the age of 110. He apparently lost his lust for life after breaking his hip and not being able to return home to his appartment and his daughter Ingeborg. |
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More on the Boy Soldiers of the Great War.
Back to the Frontpage of the The Heritage of the Great War.