Harry Patch Biography

Henry John 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 combat soldier of the First World War from any country. He is known to have fought in the trenches of the Western Front. Patch was the longest-surviving combat soldier of World War I, but he was the fifth-longest-surviving veteran of any sort from World War I, behind British veterans Claude Choules and Florence Green, Frank Buckles of the United States and John Babcock of Canada. 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 and the oldest man in Europe.