Florence Green, Last WW1 Vet dies

[TimothyC]

'World's last' WWI veteran Florence Green dies aged 110

A woman thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of World War I has died aged 110.

Florence Green, from King's Lynn, Norfolk, served as a mess steward at RAF bases in Marham and Narborough.

She died in her sleep on Saturday night at Briar House care home, King's Lynn. Mrs Green had been due to celebrate her 111th birthday on 19 February.

The world's last known combat veteran of World War I, Briton Claude Choules, died in Australia aged 110 in May 2011.

The last three World War I veterans living in the UK - Bill Stone, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch - all died in 2009.
'Wonderful mother'

Mrs Green leaves behind three children, four grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

Her husband Walter - an army veteran who served in both world wars and a porter at King's Lynn station - died aged 82 in about 1975, one of her daughters said.

The 110-year-old had been at the care home since the end of November. She previously lived in King's Lynn with her daughter May, aged 90.

Mrs Green's other daughter June Evetts, 76, lives in Oundle, Northamptonshire, and her son Bob, 85, lives in Edinburgh.

Born in London before moving to Norfolk, Mrs Green was 17 years old when she joined the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) on 13 September 1918 - two months before the armistice.

She left on 18 July 1919.

In 2010 Mrs Green's story emerged after a researcher uncovered her records.

Mrs Evetts said: "She was just the most wonderful mother you could ask for. No-one had a bad word to say about her."

She said her mother had rarely talked about her work with the WRAF as she "didn't like to blow her own trumpet", but added she was "proud of her service and loved the people she worked with".

"I'm ever so proud of her. It's such an achievement to be that last person," Mrs Evetts said.

After she left the WRAF, the mess steward married at the age of 19 and worked for much of her life at a hotel in King's Lynn.

In her spare time she was heavily involved with the Royal British Legion and knitted clothes and toys for children.

Mrs Evetts said her mother used to crochet blankets for children at the local Queen Elizabeth Hospital up until her 90s.

Sue Bray, administrator at Mrs Green's care home, said: "She really was a lovely lady. Everyone thought a lot of her. She will be sadly missed."

Group Captain David Cooper, station commander at RAF Marham, said in a statement he was very sad to hear that Mrs Green had died and added members of the airforce would be at her funeral.
'Good time'

Speaking to the BBC in 2010, Mrs Green said she had served breakfast, lunch and tea in the WRAF and had got to know many different people during her service.

She added she "learned a lot of different things" and had a "good time" there.

According to The National Archives, the WRAF was created to free up men for active service.

It said women had to undertake a variety of jobs and were used as drivers, mechanics, cooks and office clerks.

At first they were based in Britain, but later about 500 women served in France and Germany.

The WRAF was disbanded on 1 April 1920.

At the start of World War II, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force was formed and renamed the Women's Royal Air Force on 1 February 1949.

Mrs Green's funeral will be held at Mintlyn Crematorium, Bawsey, in Norfolk, on 16 February, her funeral directors confirmed.

The end of an era.

[Eternal_Freedom]

May they all rest in peace.

[Simon_Jester]

Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.

But the past is just the same-and War’s a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz–
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench-
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, ‘Is it all going to happen again?’

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack–
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads—those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.

-Siegfried Sassoon, 1919

[madd0ct0r]

[Sea Skimmer]

End of a living era

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

I would hope we had learned from the mistakes of the past. I remain unconvinced of this however.

Nonetheless, to those who fell; know that you are remembered with pride and with honour.

[Patrick Degan]