Claude Choules

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Claude Stanley Choules (born March 3, 1901 in Pershore, Worcestershire) is one of the last surviving U.K. veterans of the First World War, and one of three remaining British veterans who emigrated to Australia.

As a 13-year-old, Choules knew that two elder brothers (who settled in Perth prior to the outbreak of the war) were already fighting in Gallipoli and France with a Western Australian regiment. He was still living in England and tried to enlist in the British Army, only to be told that he was too young. So, he returned in 1915, and joined the Royal Navy, becoming a naval rating at just fourteen years old and seeing action in the North Sea, serving on the HMS Stirling until the end of the war.

A few years after the war, in 1920, Choules joined his brothers by also emigrating to Australia, where he still lives, aged 106.