Roy Palmer "What a Lovey War" P118, ISBN 0-7181-3357-9. Suggests American soldiers learned it from the British during WW1. And his text posits the use of "Old" is particularly English. Canadian soldiers WW2 were documented singing the progression of seniority in reverse. I gave Roy a VHS of a BBC documentary of Robert Graves (post his book). In it Graves recalled the words "Do you want to find the ......" and more telling "Do you want to find your sweetheart..... Hanging on the front line wire" - longer text of my research - see #48 - the PDF groups other "collected" songs. I sing "Dead drunk on the dugout floor" - can't remember where I heard it, but it does have rather effective alliteration.
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