Last Canadian WWI veteran dies

[Flashermac]

The last Canadian veteran of World War I has died at the age of 109.

 

John Babcock enlisted at the age of 15 after lying about his age. He trained in Canada and England, but the war ended before he reached the French front line.

 

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Mr Babcock was Canada's last living link to the Great War.

 

Just two other veterans of World War I remain alive: American Frank Buckles, also aged 109, and British-born Australian Claude Choules, who is 108.

 

Mr Harper, paying tribute to the 650,000 Canadian men and women who served during WW1 said: "Today they are all gone.

 

"Canada mourns the passing of the generation that asserted our independence on the world stage and established our international reputation as an unwavering champion of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law."

 

John Babcock was born on July 23, 1900 on a farm in Ontario.

 

In February 1916, at the age of 15, he signed up and the medical examiner recorded his "apparent age" as 18, which meant he was allowed to train.

 

Despite being under the legal age to fight, which was 19, he persisted in his attempts to get to the front line.

 

He lied about his age again, and sailed to Britain with the Royal Canadian Regiment. There, conscripts under the legal age of 19 formed the Young Soldiers' Battalion to train until they were eligible to fight.

 

But he never saw action as the armistice was signed six months before he reached his 19th birthday.

 

"I wanted to go to France because I was just a tin soldier," Mr Babcock said in an interview with the Canadian Press in July 2007.

 

In October 1918, after a brawl between Canadian soldiers and British Army veterans in Wales over a dancehall incident, Mr Babcock was sentenced to 14 days house arrest, the Canadian Press reported.

 

Before the fortnight was over, the armistice had been signed and he was soon on his way home.

 

He moved to the US in the 1920s, serving in the United States Army between 1921 and 1924 before becoming an electrician.

 

He died in Spokane, Washington, where he had lived since 1932, according to a statement from Mr Harper.

 

Mr Babcock tried to enlist in the US military again in 1941, but failed when it was discovered he had never become a US citizen.

 

He was naturalised as a US citizen in 1946.

 

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8523325.stm