Harry Patch, the last British soldier alive to have fought in the trenches of World War I, is now 108 years old and one of very few people who can directly recall the horror of that conflict. Harry vividly remembers his childhood in the Somerset countryside of Edwardian England. He left school in 1913 to become an apprentice plumber but three years later was conscripted, serving as a machine gunner in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. Fighting in the mud and trenches during the Battle of Passchendaele, he saw a great many of his comrades die, and in one dreadful moment the shell that wounded him killed his three closest friends. In vivid detail he describes daily life in the trenches, the terror of being under intense artillery fire, and the fear of going over the top. Then, after the Armistice, the soldiers’ frustration at not being quickly demobbed led to a mutiny in which Harry was soon caught up. World War II saw Harry in action on the home front as a firefighter during the bombing of Bath. He also warmly describes his friendship with American GIs preparing to go to France, and, years later, his tears when he saw their graves. Late in life Harry achieved fame, meeting the Queen and taking part in the BBC documentary The Last Tommies, finally shaking hands with a German veteran of the artillery, and speaking out frankly to Tony Blair about the soldiers shot for cowardice in World War I. The Last Fighting Tommy is the story of an ordinary man’s extraordinary life.

The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the Only Surviving Veteran of the Trenches

Biographies & Memoirs

Van Emden, Richard

Patch, Harry

Leaders & Notable People

Bloomsbury Pub Ltd

On 17 June 2009, Harry Patch celebrated his 111th birthday. At the time, he was the last living British Tommy that had fought in the trenches of the First World War. Now that direct link with the past has gone. From his vivid memories of an Edwardian childhood, through the horrors of the battles of Ypres and Passchendaele to working on the home front in the Second World War and fame in later life as a veteran, The Last Fighting Tommy is the story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life.
As we mark one hundred years since the beginning of the Great War, this powerful account of a life defined by those four devastating years remains as important and relevant as ever.

The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, Last Veteran of the Trenches, 1898-2009

Historical

Bloomsbury Paperbacks

Harry Patch, born June 17, 1898, was the last British soldier alive to have fought in the trenches of the First World War. From his vivid memories of an Edwardian childhood, the horror of the Great War and fighting in the mud during the Battle of Passchendaele, working on the home front in the Second World War, and fame in later life as a veteran, The Last Fighting Tommy is the story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life.

Bloomsbury USA

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