Last known WWI veteran dies at 110 - and it is not who you might guess

The last known World War I --- that is a ‘one,’ to be clear --- veteran passed away at the grand old age of 110, and she said she had ‘the time of her life.’

Florence Green, the world’s last known WW I vet, missed her 111th birthday by just two weeks. Born February 19, 1901, in London, she joined the Women's Royal Air Force in September 1918 at the tender age of 17. She was a waitress at the officers’ mess hall at RAF Marham in eastern England, and was in fact serving there when the war ended in November 1918. It was a brief stint, to be sure, but very memorable.

"I met dozens of pilots and would go on dates," she said during an interview in 2008. "I had the opportunity to go up in one of the planes but I was scared of flying. I would work every hour God sent. But I had dozens of friends on the base and we had a great deal of fun in our spare time. In many ways, I had the time of my life."

She was officially recognized as a veteran when a researcher found her service record in the national Archives. The RAF obliged with a birthday cake in 2011.

The last known combat veteran of the ‘war to end all wars’ was Claude Choules, who died last year in Perth, Australia. He, too, was 110.

The First World War erupted in July 1914 and lasted until November 1918. It involved the world great economic and colonial powers, which assembled into two opposing camps: the Allies, based in the Triple Entente of France, Great Britain and the Russia, and the Central Powers, clustered around the alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. The alliances grew with the joining of new member nations as the war progressed; they eventually mobilized close to 70 million military personnel. The war killed more than 9 million combatants, an unprecedented number in the history of wars. The war also paved the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.

The League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations, was formed in hopes of preventing another such war, but the repercussions from the defeat of Germany, such as the exceedingly punitive nature of the Treaty of Versailles, the break-up of empires, and a resurgent European nationalism contributed to the factors which eventually led to World War II.

Source
Source

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.