Frank Buckles, America's last WWI veteran, dies aged 110
 Mr Buckles settled in the US state of West Virginia after the two world wars
America's last surviving veteran of World War I, Frank Buckles, has died aged 110.
Mr Buckles, who joined the US army in 1917, at the age of 16,
lying about his age to get enlisted, died of natural causes at his home
near Charles Town, West Virginia, on Sunday.
He was one of more than 4.7m Americans who signed up to fight in the Great War between 1917-18.
He served in England and France, as a driver and a warehouse clerk.
Mr Buckles was turned down by the marines and the navy for
being too young to serve, but managed to convince an army recruiter he
was 21.
"A knowledgeable old sergeant said if you want to get to
France right away, go into the ambulance corps," he said in a 2001
interview with the Library of Congress.
He sailed to Britain in December 1917 on board the ship which five years earlier had picked up survivors of the Titanic.
"During my stay in England, I drove a motorcycle sidecar,
then Ford ambulances and cars. Perseverance paid off and I got assigned
to follow an officer who had been left behind from his unit and I got to
France," he said.
 Frank Buckles lied about his age to join the army.
Last link
Mr Buckles rose to the rank of corporal but never got closer
than 30 or so miles from the Western Front trenches. After the war he
helped return prisoners to Germany - and became one himself during WWII.
In 1941, while working for a shipping company in the
Philippines, he was captured by the Japanese, and spent more than three
years in prison camps.
After the wars he settled in West Virginia with his family.
He remained committed to honouring the 100,000 Americans who
had died in WWI and achieved fame as the last surviving link to that
conflict in the United States.
In March 2008, Buckles was honored at a special ceremony at the Pentagon and the White House by president George W Bush.
In 2009 he travelled to Washington DC to lobby senators to
rededicate a memorial on the national mall in honour of the Americans
who had fought in the campaign.
The Frank Buckles World War I Memorial Act never became law.
There are only now two documented surviving veterans of The
Great War, 109-year-old Claude Choules and 110-year-old Florence Green,
both of whom are British.
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