Florence Green died in her sleep two weeks before her 111th birthday in a care home in King's Lynn, Norfolk.
John Babcock
John Henry Foster "Jack" Babcock (23 July 1900 – 18 February 2010) was the last living Canadian veteran who fought in the First World War. He became an American citizen in 1946.
Born on July 23, 1900, Mr. John “Jack” Babcock grew up on a farm near Kingston, Ontario as part of a family of 13 children. When he was quite young, his father died in a tree-cutting accident. Despite this devastating loss, Mr. Babcock went on to bravely serve his country in the First World War before moving to the United States where he settled in Spokane, Washington.
He was 15 years old when he joined the 146th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Sydenham (near Kingston), Ontario. A few months later, he arrived in England. He was transferred to reserve battalions and ended up with the Boys Battalion in 1917, waiting until he turned 18 to go to the front lines. The war ended first. Mr. Babcock would later move to the United States, where he served in the United States Army from 1921 to 1924. Mr. Babcock married Dorothy after losing his first wife, Elsie, in the late 1970s.
Mr. Babcock read voraciously and, in recent years, completed his high school degree via correspondence courses. He had also taken local college courses. He could recite the alphabet backwards without hesitation and spell out his name in Morse code. He enjoyed travelling with his wife and taking daily walks to keep in good shape. He took up flying lessons and became a pilot when he was 65!
In April 2008, the Minister of Veterans Affairs awarded Mr. Babcock a Minister of Veterans Affairs Commendation. Later that year, a small ceremony was held in May at Mr. Babcock’s home, where his Canadian citizenship was reinstated. Another accolade came in September 2008 when the Royal Canadian Regiment Association honored Mr. Babcock with the honorary title of regimental patriarch. This was the first time the title of regimental patriarch was given in Canada.
Frank Buckles
Frank Buckles (1 February 1901 – 27th February 2011) was the last living American veteran who fought in World War I.
Buckles was born in Bethany, Missouri. He enlisted in the U.S. Army at the beginning of America's involvement in World War I in April 1917. Only 16 years old at the time, Buckles was asked by his recruiter to show a birth certificate. Later Buckles said of that event, "“I was just 16 and didn’t look a day older. I confess to you that I lied to more than one recruiter. I gave them my solemn word that I was 18, but I’d left my birth certificate back home in the family Bible. They’d take one look at me and laugh and tell me to go home before my mother noticed I was gone. Somehow I got the idea that telling an even bigger whopper was the way to go. So I told the next recruiter that I was 21 and darned if he didn’t sign me up on the spot! I enlisted in the Army on the 14th of August 1917.""
Before being accepted into the United States Army, he was turned down by the Marine Corps due to his slight weight.
In 1917, Buckles was sent to Europe on the RMS Carpathia, which had rescued RMS Titanic survivors five years earlier. During the war Buckles served in England and France, driving ambulances and motorcycles for the Army's 1st Fort Riley Casualty Detachment.
After the Armistice in 1918, Buckles escorted prisoners of war back to Germany. Following his discharge in 1919, he attended the dedication of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, in honor of those Americans who died in World War I. While there, he met General John "Black Jack" Pershing, commander of all U.S. forces in France during the war.
In the 1940s Buckles worked for a shipping company in Manila, Philippines. He was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and spent the next three and a half years in the Los Baños prison camp.
He became malnourished, with a weight below 100 lb, and developed beriberi, yet led his fellow inmates in calisthenics. He was rescued on February 23, 1945.
He died on 27 February 2011 at 110 years old.
Józef Kowalski
Jozef Kowalski (2 February 1900 - 7 December 2013) was the last Polish veteran who served just after the First World War. He is the oldest verified military veteran in the world, following the death of Gertrude Noone.
He fought in the Polish-Soviet War that was linked to the First World War. It lasted from 1919 to 1921. He is the only living person who is known to have definitely fought in that war.
He lived in Tursk, near Sulęcin, in a care home. He died on 7 December 2013, aged 113.
Stanley Lucas
Stanley Lucas (15 January 1900 - 21 June 2010) was a British supercentenarian. He was the oldest living man in Europe at the time of his death. He was also the third-oldest man in the world. Lucas was born at Morwenstow UK and had two brothers and two sisters. In 1908 his family moved to Marhamchurch where Lucas lived until 1948. Lucas married Ivy Nancekivell in 1926 and took over the family farm. Lucas was a breeder of Devon cattle and Devon longwool sheep and started a dairy farm in the early 1940s. In 1948 he moved to live with his family at Poughill, where he continued to live after Ivy's death in 1963. Lucas was a member of Bude Town Council from 1959–1970, as well as vice chairman. His daughter said, "He has worked hard in his working life and was a teetotaller and non-smoker and since he has been elderly has been well cared for". He died on 21 June 2010 in Bude, England at the age of 110.
Michelle Keegan
Michelle Elizabeth Keegan (born 3 June 1987) is a British actress. She was born in Stockport, Greater Manchester. She is best known for playing Tina McIntyre in the long-running ITV soap opera, "Coronation Street" from 2008 to 2014.
David Jason
Sir David John White, OBE, (born 2 February 1940), known professionally as by his stage name David Jason, is an English actor, comedian, voice actor, screenwriter and television producer; He is best known for his roles as Del Boy in the BBC and GOLD comedy series sitcom "Only Fools and Horses and Detective Insepctor Jack Frost in A Touch Of Frost, Granville in Open All Hours and Still Open All Hours, and Pop Larkin in The Darling Buds of May, as well as voicing Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Williows and the title character of DangerMouse and Count Duckula; His last original was Del Boy was in 2014 and Frost in 2010."
Jason was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1993, and knighted in 2005, both for services to drama. He won the British Comedy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award in 2003.
Jason lived with his long term girlfriend, actress Myfanwy Talog, for eighteen years until her death from breast cancer in 1995. At age 61, Jason and 41 year old girlfriend Gill Hinchcliffe had a baby girl in 2001. They married in 2005.
David Jason has a total of twenty-three awards between 1986 and 2003. His hit comedy show, "Only Fools and Horses" won many of these awards, and was also nominated many times. His crime drama, A Touch of Frost, has also won and been nominated many times. "Porterhouse Blue", "The Second Quest", "All the King's Men" and "A Bit of a Do" have won David Jason one award each.
Karl Malden
Karl Malden (22 March 1912 – 1 July 2009) was an American actor. He worked in acting from the 1930s to 2000. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "A Streetcar Named Desire". He was also in other classic movies, such as "On the Waterfront", "One-Eyed Jacks" and "Patton". He is perhaps best known for his role on television in the series "The Streets of San Francisco" during the 1970s.
He was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago. He grew up in Gary, Indiana. His family was Serbian. In 1938, he married Broadway actress Mona Greenberg. The two would remain married until Malden's death in 2009. Greenberg died in July 2019.