The BBC is reporting that the world's last known combat veteran of World War I, Claude Choules, has died in Australia aged 110.
He Royal Navy at 15 and went on to serve on HMS Revenge on which he saw action in the North Sea aged 17, going on to witnessed the surrender of the German fleet in the Firth of Forth in November 1918, then the scuttling of the fleet at Scapa Flow.
Having moved back to Australia and joining the Royal Australian Navy in 1932. During World War II he was chief demolition officer for the western half of Australia. It would have been his responsibility to blow up the key strategic harbour of Fremantle, near Perth, if Japan had invaded. After finishing his service Mr Choules joined the Naval Dockyard Police.
Despite his military record, Mr Choules became a pacifist. He was known to have disagreed with the celebration of Australia's most important war memorial holiday, Anzac Day, and refused to march in the annual commemoration parades.
His autobiography, The Last of the Last, which was published in 2009, the same year that last three WWI veterans living in Britain - Bill Stone, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch - all died.
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