The Last Tommy By TITVS ADVXAS

Passchendaele...

The remains of a Flemish Town...

Before and After...

By TITVS ADVXAS - As the nation mourns the last Tommy to survive World War One, it's a wonder Private Henry John Patch even lived to see the Armistice in 1918. Another heroic stalwart of the conflict, he was injured in battle when shrapnel exploded above him, killing three of his comrades, his closest chums, men with whom he'd trained and served and with whom he nearly did perish...

The Battle of Passchendaele (known also as the third Battle of Ypres) was one of the most notorious battles of the Great War, the war to end all wars. A battle supposedly won by the Allied triple entente is remembered for the mud. Haunting photographs remain of the barren skyline and the dead trees, their trunks and stumps left stark and broken as if by some giant child toying in the mud.The barren trenches and mud and unending torrential rain exemplified the utter waste of this war, where men who fell injured actually died by drowning in the sludge of the battleground.Although totals were slightly less than at the Somme a year earlier, one tenth of all Allied casualties from the entire "1418" conflict fell in this battle alone. Over half a million Allied soldiers lost or injured in just four months in 1917.

The alleged 1916 conversation between the German Generals Erich Ludendorff and Max Hoffmann which went along the lines that the English army 'were lions led by donkeys' rang true a year later as battalion after battalion of brave young Englishmen, Welshmen, Scotsmen and Irishmen, Canadians and Newfoundlanders, Indians, Anzacs and South Africans, were all thrown literally into the Flanders mire, by those Hooray Henries Generals Haig, Gough and Plumer.

The last English survivor from the trenches, a man who fought and was wounded at Passchendaele, Private Patch, died on Saturday (25th July 2009) aged 111. Ironically "Harry" outlived one of the other survivors of that war, Henry Allingham, by just 7 days, leaving just three others, of whom, only Claude Choule, 108, saw active service at sea, serving with the Royal Navy during World War I. Mr Choule was born in Worcestershire and now lives in Western Australia. The other two survivors are John Babcock and Frank Buckles. Mr Babcock, who turned 109 on 23 July, was with The Canadian Boys Battalion in England. The war ended before he turned 18 and could go to the front. Mr Buckles, 108, joined the American army at age 16 and was held in reserve in England from December 1917. After six months he was sent to France but never saw action on the frontline.

Born in Somerset in 1898, Harry Patch was a modest and gentle man. He never spoke publicly of his experiences in the war until 1998 when the BBC made a program entitled Veterans and interviewed several men from the ever decreasing number of real heroes. He received eight medals in his lifetime, including recent awards from France "Knight of the Legion d'honneur" in 1998 and from Belgium, "Knight of the Order of Leopold" in 2008. Harry left school in 1913, aged 14 and was conscripted to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in October 1916. He served as an assistant gunner in a Lewis Gun section. Harry arrived in France in June 1917, and it was at Passchendaele on 22nd September where he was injured in the groin when a shell exploded overhead at 22:30 on 22 September 1917, killing his three comrades. Following the incident, he returned to England in December 1917. In later years, Harry always referred to 22 September as his own Remembrance Day.

The British National Party, it seemed to me, was the only political party who remembered Henry Allingham in the previous week, at meetings and in their own press. his weekend, the shame from the other parties from their own neglect, has forced them to remember Private Henry John Patch (retired) of Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. The last Tommy.

In memory of Harry Patch 1898 to 2009. May God keep you and let you rest in peace.

This youtube clip was added on Sunday afternoon

©TITVS-ADVXAS XXV-VII-MMIX
As Published