Last UK veteran of WWI trench battles dies at 111
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090725/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_obit_patch
By ROBERT BARR, Associated Press Writer Robert Barr, Associated Press Writer 21 mins ago
LONDON Harry Patch, Britain's last survivor of the trenches of World War I, was a reluctant soldier who became a powerful eyewitness to the horror of war, and a symbol of a lost generation.
Patch, who died Saturday at 111, was wounded in 1917 in the Battle of Passchendaele, which he remembered as "mud, mud and more mud mixed together with blood."
"Anyone who tells you that in the trenches they weren't scared, he's a damned liar: you were scared all the time," Patch was quoted as saying in a book, "The Last Fighting Tommy," written with historian Richard van Emden.
The Fletcher House care home in Wells, southwest England, said Patch "quietly slipped away" on Saturday morning.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the whole country would mourn "the passing of a great man."
"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," Brown said.
Last old soldier of a terrible war now joins his band of brothers.
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