Obituary - Harry Patch

Harry Patch was an ordinary man who lived an extraordinary life.

Milestones during his 111 years included the first powered flight, the moon landings, the jet age and the atomic bomb.

When he was born there was no radio, no television and cinema was in its infancy.

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He was a boy when the Titanic sank, and just 18 when he, like thousands of others, was conscripted in to the Army to fight in the First World War.

Until his death on July 25, he was the last link to this lost generation of trench war soldiers.

But while thousands of his comrades have faded from memory, Harry Patch was a household name - one known to royalty and politicians.

He was the last of his kind.

The Queen said: "We will never forget the bravery and enormous sacrifice of his generation, which will continue to serve as an example to us all."

Mr Patch died peacefully in his bed in a Somerset nursing home at around 9am. A spokesman said he had been unwell for some time and passed away surrounded by friends and carers.

He died a week after fellow veteran Henry Allingham, who was 113.

There are now just three surviving veterans of the First World War. The last British man who served in the conflict is 108-year-old Claude Choules, a former member of the Royal Navy who lives in Australia.

Prince Charles said of Mr Patch: "The Great War is a chapter in our history we must never forget; so many sacrifices were made, so many young lives lost. So today nothing could give me greater pride than paying tribute to Harry Patch from Somerset.

"Harry was involved in numerous bouts of heavy fighting on the front line but amazingly remained unscathed for a while. Tragically one night in September 1917, when in the morass in the Ypres Salient, a German shrapnel shell burst over head, badly wounding Harry and killing three of his closest friends.

"In spite of the comparatively short time that he served with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Harry always cherished the extraordinary camaraderie that the appalling conditions engendered in the battalion and remained loyal to the end."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "I had the honour of meeting Harry, and I share his family's grief at the passing of a great man. I know that the whole nation will unite today to honour the memory, and to take pride in the generation that fought the Great War. The noblest of all the generations has left us, but they will never be forgotten. We say today with still greater force: 'We will remember them'."

Mr Patch was born on June 17, 1898. Queen Victoria was on the throne and the Wright brothers were five years away from making the first powered flight.

He left school at 15 and trained as a plumber. When he was 18 he was conscripted into the Army and became a machine-gunner with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. Despite being a crack shot, he later said he always aimed to wound the enemy, not to kill.

In 1917 he fought in one of the bloodiest campaigns of the First World War, at Passchendale, near the Belgian town of Ypres.

He was part of a five-man Lewis Gun team which came under shellfire shortly after 10pm on September 22.

Years later Mr Patch recalled: "We were going through to the support line, over a piece of open ground, when a whizz bang burst just behind me.

"The force of the explosion threw me to the floor, but I didn't know that I'd been hit for two or three minutes; burning metal knocks the pain out of you at first. I saw blood, so I took a field dressing out and put it on the wound. Then the pain came."

Mr Patch said he was taken to a medical station but had to wait until the following evening to be seen by a doctor.

He then had to undergo "two minutes of agony" while the doctor cut a two-inch long piece of shrapnel out of his groin without anaesthetic.

Mr Patch said he was recovering in England when he learned that his colleagues had been killed.

He said: "The Lewis Gun team was a little team together and the last three, who were the ammunition carriers, were blown to pieces. My reaction was terrible; it was like losing a part of my life. Simply blown to pieces, there you are, but it upset me more than anything."

In total, 70,000 troops were killed in the battle.

Mr Patch always maintained that for him Remembrance Day was 22 September, not 11 November.

He met his first wife Ada while stationed in a convalescence unit in Sutton Coldfield. They married at Holy Trinity Church, Hadley, in 1919.

The couple, who also lived in Church Stretton and Gobowen, were together for 58 years until her death in 1976. He also outlived their two sons, Dennis and Roy.

Mr Patch married again at the age of 81. His second wife, Jean, died seven years ago.

His third partner, Doris, was a fellow resident at Mr Patch's care home. She died last year.

Mr Patch did not speak about his war experiences for 80 years. However, when he turned 100 he told his story in the BBC series Veterans: The Last Survivors of The Great War.

In 1999 he was one of 350 first world war veterans to be honoured by France with the Legion D'Honneur. Mr Patch dedicated the medal to his three fallen comrades.

In 2007 his autobiography, The Last Fighting Tommy, was published.

Mr Patch remained an opponent of war for the rest of his life, calling conflict "organised murder".

He added: "It was not worth it, it was not worth one let alone all the millions.

"It's important that we remember the war dead on both sides of the line - the Germans suffered the same as we did."

Mr Patch once put his long life down to the clean Shropshire air he breathed during his recovery in the county.

He also said he had lived a clean life: "I neither smoke, drink nor gamble. The three sins, leave them alone."

By Andrew Owen