Aussie WWI vet dies, 110 years old

[Franco Cozzo]

Australia's last World War 1 veteran died today, aged 110 years old, served in WWI and WWII.

Claude Choules was not only the last surviving combat veteran of the First World War, but also the final person alive who saw active service in both world wars.

He enlisted into the Royal Navy aged just 14 and witnessed the scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919.

After emigrating to Australia in the 1920s, he was given responsibility for blowing up the key strategic harbour of Fremantle, near Perth, Western Australia, in the event of a successful Japanese invasion during the Second World War.

Mr Choules was born in Pershore, Worcestershire, on March 3 1901, six weeks after the death of Queen Victoria.

His mother Madeline, a Welsh actress, walked out of the family home in nearby Wyre Piddle when he was five. He was told she had died but in fact she had returned to the stage, and he never saw her again.

Having emigrated to Western Australia in 1911, his two elder brothers joined the Australian Imperial Force and fought in the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in Turkey.

Mr Choules wanted to join them in the fight against Germany and her allies, so tried to enlist in the Army as a bugler boy when he was 14, but the recruiting officer knew his age and refused.

His father Harry suggested he should try the Royal Navy and he signed up for naval training in 1915.

In 1917, when he was 16, he joined the battleship HMS Revenge, part of the British Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, and saw action in the North Sea.

While serving on Revenge he witnessed the surrender of the German fleet at the Firth of Forth, on Scotland's east coast, on November 21, 1918.

Mr Choules was also present at Scapa Flow on June 21, 1919 when the Germans scuttled all their warships.

Revenge went out on an exercise that day but it was abruptly cancelled once the British naval command realised what had happened.

Mr Choules recalled in his 2009 memoirs The Last of the Last: "We arrived back at Scapa Flow at about 2pm to a most amazing sight. Most of the German capital ships had already sunk and, in all directions, others were sinking.

"The Flow was filled with German ships all flying a white flag and carrying the internment crews.

"All our boats were lowered and we were rushed aboard any of the German ships still afloat in an attempt to close portholes, watertight doors and such, but this proved useless as they were too far gone...

"It was a disturbing sight; a whole fleet had almost disappeared."

Mr Choules remained with the Royal Navy after the war and in 1926 was posted as an instructor to Flinders Naval Depot, near Melbourne, Australia.

While on board the passenger liner that took him to Australia, he met his future wife Ethel. They were married on December 3 1926 and later settled in Western Australia.

Mr Choules decided to transfer permanently to the Royal Australian Navy and during the Second World War he was appointed chief demolition officer for the western half of Australia.

If Japan had succeeded in invading Australia it would have been his responsibility to render Fremantle harbour useless to the enemy.

In 1942, when fears of a Japanese invasion were at their height, he had depth charges attached to all the ships moored in Fremantle.

He remained in the Australian navy until his retirement at the age of 55 in 1956, after which he turned his hand to crayfish fishing and kangaroo culling.

Nicknamed "Chuckles" by his fellow sailors, Mr Choules used to tell those who asked that the secret of his longevity was to "keep breathing".

His wife died in 2003 at the age of 98 after they had been married for 76 years, and he spent his final years in a nursing home in Perth.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...0-2279288.html