At Hillsborough's Memorial Day Parade this morning, more than one person remarked that there were so few veterans of World War II still living. That's true enough, but not so few that every community isn't proud to have at least a handful in their midst. After all, there are still approximately two million U.S. World War II veterans among us.
World war I is another story entirely. There is just one surviving U.S. veteran of the Great War -
Frank Woodruff Buckles.
Born in February of 1901, the underage Buckles bluffed his way past Army recruiters, enlisting at the start of America's involvement in the war in April 1917. He served as an ambulance and motorcycle driver in both England and France. He seems to have spent his active duty uneventfully - his real adventure came twenty-five years later in his civilian life. While working for a shipping company in Manila in 1942, he was captured by invading Japanese, and spent three and a half years in a WWII Japanese prison camp.
Albert Woolson, who died in 1956 at the age of 106 was the last surviving Civil War veteran.
Anson Wolcott Gillett didn't live quite that long. Born in 1845, he served three enlistments, then spent the rest of his career in the directory and advertising business. He was one of Blackhawk County, Iowa's last remaining Civil war veterans when he died in 1937.
No comments:
Post a Comment