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Henry Allingham dies aged 113
Jul. 18th, 2009 09:52 pmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8157447.stm
Now only Harry patch, aged 111, remains of those UK servicemen who fought in WW1
I remember listening to Henry talk of his experiences in a documentary some years ago. As always, I was struck by how vividly all these veterans remember every detail and by how the things they saw and did in those few years of their youth have remained the most important experiences of their lives. I was only discussing this with a colleague at work a couple of days ago. He was going to meet a survivor of the very concentration camp that his late father had helped liberate at the end of WW2. His father apparently never spoke much about those times but apparently everything he experienced in his life after the war, including getting married and raising a family, was an anticlimax to him, such was the impact of the things he had done and witnessed during the war.
I don't think we can ever really understand the debt that we owe such people. That fact that JRR Tolkien himself was one of them is something I never forget either.
Now only Harry patch, aged 111, remains of those UK servicemen who fought in WW1
I remember listening to Henry talk of his experiences in a documentary some years ago. As always, I was struck by how vividly all these veterans remember every detail and by how the things they saw and did in those few years of their youth have remained the most important experiences of their lives. I was only discussing this with a colleague at work a couple of days ago. He was going to meet a survivor of the very concentration camp that his late father had helped liberate at the end of WW2. His father apparently never spoke much about those times but apparently everything he experienced in his life after the war, including getting married and raising a family, was an anticlimax to him, such was the impact of the things he had done and witnessed during the war.
I don't think we can ever really understand the debt that we owe such people. That fact that JRR Tolkien himself was one of them is something I never forget either.