Front row seats to a world gone mad

HARRY PATCH: Harry Patch, last British soldier who fought in World War I trenches. Died aged 111.

Henry Allingham, world's oldest man and oldest World War I veteran. Died aged 113.

Harry Patch was said to be the last British soldier alive who witnessed the horror of trench warfare.

He was a machine-gunner in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry and fought during the Battle of Passchendaele, in Ypres, which claimed the lives of more than 70,000 soldiers.

Henry Allingham, claimed as the world's oldest man at the time of his death, could also lay claim to being the last survivor of the famous World War I naval Battle of Jutland - and also the last surviving member of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and the last surviving founding member of the Royal Air Force.

Harry Patch served in the trenches as a private from June to September 1917. He grew up near Bath, and left school at the age of 15 to train as a plumber.

He was 16 when war broke out and reached 18 as conscription was being introduced. After six months' training he was sent to the frontline.

He was the number two in a five-man Lewis gun team and his role was to carry and assemble the spare parts for the machinegun and ensure it worked. The five gunners made a pact not to kill an enemy soldier if they could help it but to aim instead for the legs.

But on September 22, 1917, a shell exploded above Mr Patch's head killing three of his comrades. Patch was hit by shrapnel in the lower abdomen but survived.

He did not speak of his war experiences before he was 100 but became very anti-war describing it as "organised murder. 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."

During his recovery in Britain after his wound he met his first wife, Ada, in 1918.

They were married for almost 60 years and had two sons, Dennis and Roy, both of whom Harry has outlived.

Too old to fight in World War II, Mr Patch became a maintenance manager at a US Army camp in Somerset and joined the Auxiliary Fire Service in Bath.

After the war he went back to plumbing and retired in 1963.

Following Ada's death in 1976, at 81 Mr Patch married his second wife, Jean, who died five years ago.

His autobiography, The Last Fighting Tommy, written with Richard van Emden, was published in 2007.

In 1999 Mr Patch received the Legion D'Honneur medal awarded by the French Government to 350 surviving World War I veterans who fought on the Western Front, dedicating it to his three fallen comrades.

Henry Allingham, described as a quiet, genial man, became the face of World War I veteran associations in Britain.

He made frequent public appearances to make sure that awareness of the death and destruction of World War I was not lost on modern generations.

He celebrated his 113th birthday at a party hosted by the Royal Navy at HMS President in London on June 6 this year.

He had only been designated the world's oldest man in June after the previous holder, Tomoji Tanabe of Japan, died aged 113.

- AGENCIES