Harry Patch
Henry John "Harry" Patch (17 June 1898 – 25 July 2009), dubbed in his latter years "the Last Fighting Tommy", was a British supercentenarian, briefly the oldest man in Europe and the last surviving soldier known to have fought in the trenches of the First World War. Patch was, with Claude Choules and Florence Green, one of the last three surviving British veterans of the First World War and, along with Frank Buckles and John Babcock, one of the last known five veterans worldwide.
At the time of his death, aged 111 years, 38 days, Patch was the verified third-oldest man in the world, the oldest man in Europe and the 69th oldest man.
Read more about Harry Patch: Biography, Medals, Death, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words harry and/or patch:
“It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer and Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world, the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require still a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food. Neither could I do without them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Whatever patch of limb
he gazes on
with unblinking eyes,
I cover up
but I want him to see it all anyway.”
—Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)