Harry Patch, last surviving "Tommy" from WW1

Britain bade farewell today to Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier from the trenches of the First World War.
About 1,400 wellwishers, friends and relatives packed Wells Cathedral for a funeral service dedicated to a message of peace and reconciliation.
They included senior army officers, members of the Royal Family and diplomats from France, Belgium and Germany in recognition of those countries' sacrifice in the Great War.
Thousands more lined the streets and surrounding precincts to pay their respect to the "last fighting Tommy", who died in a nursing home in Wells on July 25 at the age of 111. Before the service began, the cathedral bell had tolled 111 times.
Mr Patch was conscripted as an 18-year-old and arrived in the Western Front in June 1917, spending three months as a machine-gunner in the trenches of the Ypres salient, although he insisted that he had never killed anyone. He was invalided away from the front in September 1917 after being injured in the battle of Passchendaele in an explosion which killed his three closest comrades.
After the war Mr Patch returned to his native Somerset and worked as a plumber and, like so many of his generation, refused to speak about his experiences in the trenches.
It was only after he gave an interview for a BBC documentary in 1998, when he turned 100, that he began to do so amid the realisation that his was one of the last voices of a generation who had experienced the full horror of war. In the final years of his life he became a passionate campaigner against all kinds of warfare, saying: "War isn’t worth one life."
Mr Patch died a week after another First World War survivor, Henry Allingham, who at the age of 113 had been named the world's oldest man. At the time of his death, Mr Patch was officially Europe's oldest man.
Some of Mr Patch's admirers slept overnight on Cathedral Green so they could be first in line for the public tickets for today's service. Others were relying on a large screen erected to relay proceedings live from inside the building.
As heavy rain began to fall, Mr Patch’s coffin was brought into the cathedral by soldiers of 1st Battalion The Rifles, of which The Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry — Mr Patch’s regiment during the Great War — eventually became a part.
"Today marks the passing of a generation, and of a man who dedicated his final years to spreading the message of peace and reconciliation," Kevan Jones, the Veterans Minister, said.
"Active participation in the Great War is now no longer part of living memory in this country, but Harry Patch will continue to be a symbol of the bravery and sacrifice shown by him and those he served with."

Love is the only way

Thank you Jude for this interesting life story!
Let mr. Patch rest in peace!
           
         
          Buba,Goran's mom

Thank you, Jude, for sharing this story with us!
 
May Mr. Patch rest in peace, and may his memory inspire a deeper desire for peace in the world!
 
Edda

Peace and joy!