Eric Charles Twelves Wilson Lieutenant Colonel Eric Charles Twelves Wilson VC ( 2 October 1912 – 23 December 2008 ) was an English army officer and colonial administrator . He received the Victoria Cross , the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces . At the time of his death , he was last surviving British Army recipient of the Victoria Cross in the Second World War , and the earliest and oldest recipient . Early life . Wilson was born at Sandown on the Isle of Wight , where his father Cyril Charles Clissold Wilson was a curate . His mother ' s maiden name was Twelves . His grandfather Charles Thomas Wilson was the first missionary from the Church Mission Society to visit Buganda in 1877 . He was educated at Marlborough College , where fees were reduced for the sons of clergymen , and he became a house captain . Although he wore glasses , he was awarded a prize cadetship to attend Royal Military College , Sandhurst . Military career . Wilson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in The East Surrey Regiment on 2 February 1933 . He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1936 and was seconded to the 2nd ( Nyasaland ) Battalion The King ' s African Rifles in 1937 serving in East Africa , where he learned to speak Nyanja . He was then seconded to The Somaliland Camel Corps in 1939 . In August 1940 , Wilson was 27 - years - old , and by then an acting captain attached to the Somaliland Camel Corps , when Italian forces commanded by General Guglielmo Nasi invaded British Somaliland ( now Somalia ) . During the Italian conquest of British Somaliland the heavily outnumbered British - led forces made their stand on the hills around Tug Argan . During this battle , from 11 August 1940 to 15 August 1940 at Observation Hill , Captain Wilson kept a Vickers machine - gun post in action in spite of being wounded and suffering from malaria . Some of his guns were blown to pieces by the enemy ' s field artillery fire , and his spectacles were smashed . He was wounded in the right shoulder and left eye , and he was assumed to have been killed . For his actions , likened in the " Daily Sketch " to another Rorke ' s Drift , he was awarded the Victoria Cross . He had however had been captured by the Italians . He has the rare distinction of being mistakenly awarded a " posthumous " VC , announced in the London Gazette on 16 October 1940 . At the time the award was made he was believed to be missing in action , presumed dead . An official report in The Times in 16 October indicated that he has survived , but another captured officer was surprised to find the " late " Captain Wilson still alive in a POW camp in Eritrea . When the Italian forces in East Africa surrendered following the East African Campaign Wilson was released from captivity in 1941 . He returned to England and received his Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace in July 1942 . With his captain ' s rank made permanent in 1941 , and serving as a temporary major , he served as adjutant of the Long Range Desert Group and then as second in command of the 11th ( Kenyan ) King ' s African Rifles , part of the 25th East African Brigade in 11th East African Division , in the Burma Campaign . Having contracted scrub typhus he was hospitalised for two months and then returned to East Africa to command an infantry training establishment at Jinja in Uganda . He was promoted to acting lieutenant - colonel in June 1945 and was seconded to The Northern Rhodesian Regiment in 1946 . He retired from the Army in 1949 and although at this time his permanent rank was major , he was granted the honorary rank of lieutenant - colonel . Victoria Cross Citation . The formal citation for Wilson ' s VC , published in the London Gazette in October 1940 when he was still presumed dead , reads : Later life . Wilson married Ann Pleydell - Bouverie in 1943 . They had two sons . After they were divorced in 1953 , Wilson married Angela Joy Gordon , and they had one son . After Wilson left the Army in 1949 , he joined the Overseas Civil Service in Tanganyika . He learned several African languages , and served in Tanganyika until independence of the British East African countries which led to his retirement in 1961 . In 1962 Wilson was appointed Deputy Warden of London House , a residence at Goodenough Square in the Bloomsbury district of London . This residence is for university graduates from the Commonwealth of Nations pursuing graduate studies in the United Kingdom . In 1966 Wilson was promoted to Warden of London House , holding the position until retirement in 1977 . During his tenure the patron of the residence was HRH Prince Philip , Duke of Edinburgh . He retired to Stowell , Dorset . Until his death , he was one of only ten Victoria Cross recipients alive . He was the last surviving British Army recipient of the Second World War , as well as being the earliest and oldest recipient . His VC is on display in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum , London . He suffered from prostate cancer in later life , and died after a stroke . He was buried in Stowell , survived by his second wife and their son , and two sons from his first marriage .