Last WWI combat vet dies at 110

The last First World War combat veteran has died at the age of 110.

Claude Choules was the last of 65 million military personnel mobilized during the conflict. Choules, nicknamed “Chuckles”, died in his nursing home in Perth, Australia overnight.

Australian Defence Force spokesman Gary Booth, who is close to the family, said that it was the end of an era.

"He was a living part of history and with his death, it’s gone. There is no more link with active service personnel.”

"It’s hard to imagine all the things he’s seen in his life – two World Wars, horse and cart to man on the moon."

Born in Britain in 1901, Choules joined the Royal Navy in the middle of the First World War at the age of 14. He served on board the HMS Revenge, and witnessed the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet.

"There was no sign of fight left in the Germans as they came out of the mist at about 10 a.m.," Choules wrote in his autobiography. The German flag, he recalled, was hauled down at sunset.

"So ended the most momentous day in the annals of naval warfare," he wrote. "A fleet of ships surrendered without firing a shot."

Choules moved to Australia following the war and was seconded to the Royal Australian Navy in 1926. During the Second World War, he was the acting torpedo officer in Fremantle, Western Australia, and chief demolition officer for the western side of the Australian continent. Choules disposed of the first mine to wash ashore in Australia during the war.

He later transferred to the Naval Dockyard Police and continued to serve until his retirement in 1956.

Choules’ military career spanned four decades and two world wars, but he became a pacifist later in life, declining to march in parades commemorating the conflicts that made him famous.

He was married to Ethel Wildgoose for 76 years, until her death in 2008 at age 98. Choules leaves behind three children who are now in their eighties, 13 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

Canada’s last surviving veteran of the First World War, John Babcock, died on February 18, 2010 at the age of 109.

The only other surviving veteran of the First World War is said to be Britain’s Florence Green, who served with the Royal Air Force in a non-combat role and is now aged 110.

With files from the Associated Press and Agence France-Press