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Henry John "Harry" Patch (17 June 1898 – 25 July 2009), dubbed in his later 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 with Frank Buckles and John Babcock, one of the five last known veterans in the world.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://firstworldwar.cloudworth.com/still-living-veterans-of-world-war-one.php )〕 At the time of his death, aged 111 years, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day, Patch was the third-oldest man in the world, the oldest man in Europe and the 77th verified oldest man ever. ==Biography== Patch was born in the village of Combe Down, near Bath, Somerset, England. He appears in the 1901 Census as a two-year-old boy along with his stonemason father William John Patch, mother Elizabeth Ann (née Morris) and older brothers George Frederick and William Thomas at a house called "Fonthill".〔See General Register Office indices for quarter ending September 1886; and 〕 The family are recorded at the same address "Fonthill Cottage" in the 1911 census.〔(Piece details RG 14/14687, General Register Office: 1911 Census Schedules, Registration Sub-District: Bathwick—Civil Parish, Township or Place: Monkton Combe (part)—RD 316 RS 2 ED 6 ), ''The Catalogue'', The National Archives. Images of census pages available by subscription on findmypast.com as reference RG14 Piece 14687 Reference RG78PN891 RD316 SD2 ED6 SN65〕 His elder brothers are recorded as a carpenter and banker mason. Longevity ran in Patch's family; his father lived to 82, his mother to 94, his brother George to 95 and his brother William to 87. Patch left school in 1913 and became an apprentice plumber in Bath.〔("WWI veteran celebrates 109 years" ), BBC News, 17 June 2007.〕 In October 1916, during World War I, he was conscripted as a private into the British Army, reporting for duty at Tolland Barracks, Taunton. During the winter of 1916–17 he was promoted lance-corporal but was demoted after a fist fight with a soldier, who had taken his boots from his billet and saw no further promotion. Patch went through a series of short-lived attachments to several regiments, including the Royal Warwickshire Regiment before being posted after completing training to the 7th (Service) Battalion, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, serving as an assistant gunner in a Lewis Gun section.〔He recorded: "In early 1917 we went to Sutton Veney near Warminster where I joined the 33rd Training Reserve Battalion. At this point we weren't attached to any regiment, although before we joined the 33rd I wore several different regimental cap badges, the Royal Warwickshire Regiment being one, so I must have been shifted around."〕 Patch arrived in France in June 1917.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher=British Light Infantry Regiments )〕 He fought on the Western Front at the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) and was injured in the groin, when a shell exploded overhead at 22:30 on 22 September 1917, killing three of his comrades. He was removed from the front line and returned to England on 23 December 1917.〔 Patch referred to 22 September as his personal Remembrance Day. He was still convalescing on the Isle of Wight when the Armistice was declared the following November.〔 After the war, Patch returned to work as a plumber, during which time he spent four years working on the Wills Memorial Building in Bristol, before becoming manager of the plumbing company's branch in Bristol. A year above the age to be called up for military service at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, he became a part-time fireman in Bath, dealing with the Baedeker raids.〔 Later in the war he moved to Street, Somerset, where he ran a plumbing company until his retirement at the age of 65.〔 On 13 September 1919, Patch married, at Hadley, Shropshire, Ada Billington, who died in 1976. They had two sons, both of whom predeceased him: Dennis, who died in 1984 and Roy, who died in 2002.〔 At 81, he married his second wife, Jean, who died in 1984. His third partner, Doris Whittaker, who lived in the same nursing home as him, died in 2007. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Harry Patch」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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