As editor of Claude Choules's book, The Last of the Last, let me offer a few clarifying remarks.
The claim is that Claude is the last man alive who served as a combatant in the First World War, and that he is the last man alive who saw active service in both World Wars.
He served in the Royal Navy in WWI, seeing his first action on HMS Revenge in the North Sea in November 1917.
He served in the Royal Australian Navy during WWII as an explosives and demolition officer, based at Fremantle, Western Australia. As such he helped service torpedoes, depth charges and sonar equipment on US, Dutch, Australian and British vessels calling at Fremantle. He served at Broome, in Northern Australia, helping to clean up the mess after the Japanese bombed that town and port. He was also tasked with defusing mines and unexploded mines that washed up anywhere on the WA coast -- dangerous work that is "active" service, but not quite a "combatant".
With regard to Frank Buckles. Without in anyway wishing to downplay his service it has to be said, as he openly states in several interviews, that he did serve as a combatant in WW1, but as an ambulance driver. He himself has said that he saw no combat, although he certainly saw the horrible results of the fighting.
The distinction between "active service" and "combatant" is one that those who served in the Great War would have understood perhaps a little better than modern sensibilities.
It is also said that Frank Buckles was a prisoner of the Japanese during WWII. This is true. He was held, I believe, for more than three years -- but as a civilian prisoner. He was captured when the Japanese took Manila, where Mr Buckles was working as a purser aboard a White Star passenger liner.
I have no doubt the Japanese did not make much (if any) distinction between civilian and military prisoners, and Mr Buckles must have had a far more unpleasant war than Claude, who often got to sleep in his own bed in his home at Fremantle. But the fact remains, Claude Choules was a member of a military force during WWII and Frank Buckles was not.
As I said, we have no wish to appear to denigrate the service or the experiences of Frank Buckles, who, from interviews I have seen on youtube, comes across as a wise and very decent man, well deserving of the honor and respect he is accorded.
Claude Choules slipped under a lot of people's radar because he has been a very private man who basically put the past behind him. I have met him to discuss certain editorial decisions and clarify his text. and I can tell you that although very frail, he is still with us and has a lively sense of humor.
Claude wrote his memoirs 25 years ago, but at that time he was merely one of thousands of old soldiers and the project went into a bottom draw. History has now come around to the man who is the last living witness to the surrender of the German Fleet and its scuttling at Scapa Flow.
Of course I am an interested party here, but I have to say that I think anyone who reads Claude's book will be impressed by the man and his story.
For more information, have a look at the press release at
http://www.hesperianpress.com/