Henry John Patch (17 June 1898 – 25 July 2009), dubbed in his later years "the Last Fighting Tommy", was an English supercentenarian, briefly the oldest man in Europe, and the world's last surviving trench combat soldier of the First World War. Patch was not the longest-surviving soldier of the First World War, but he was the fifth-longest-surviving veteran of any sort from the First World War, behind British veterans Claude Choules and Florence Green, Frank Buckles of the United States and John Babcock of Canada. At the time of his death, aged 111 years and 38 days, Patch was the fourth-oldest man in the world, behind Walter Breuning, Horacio Celi Mendoza, and Jiroemon Kimura.
Harry Patch was born in the village of Combe Down, near Bath, Somerset, England. He appears in the 1901 Census as a two-year-old boy along with his stonemason father William John Patch (1863–1945), mother Elizabeth Ann (née Morris) (1857–1951) and older brothers George Frederick (1888–1983) and William Thomas (1894–1981) at a house called "Fonthill" in Gladstone Road. The family are recorded at the same address "Fonthill Cottage" in the 1911 census. His elder brothers are recorded as a carpenter and banker mason. Longevity ran in Patch's family; his father lived to 82, his mother to 94, his brother George to 95 and his brother William to 87. Patch left school in 1913 and became an apprentice plumber in Bath.
In October 1916, during the First World War, he was conscripted into the British Army as a private, reporting for duty at Tolland Barracks, Taunton. During the winter of 1916–17 he was promoted to lance corporal, but was demoted after a fistfight with a soldier who had taken Patch's boots from his billet, and he saw no further promotion. Patch went through a series of short-lived attachments to several regiments, including the Royal Warwickshire Regiment before being posted after completing training to the 7th (Service) Battalion, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, serving as an assistant gunner in a Lewis gun section. Patch arrived in France in June 1917. He fought on the Western Front at the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) and was wounded, when a shell exploded overhead at 22:30 on 22 September 1917, killing three of his comrades. He had a two-inch piece of shrapnel removed from his groin; as there was no anaesthetic remaining in the camp he chose to have the operation done without anaesthesia. He was removed from the front line and returned to England on 23 December 1917. Patch referred to 22 September as his personal Remembrance Day. He was still convalescing on the Isle of Wight when the Armistice with Germany was declared the following November.
When the war ended, I don't know if I was more relieved that we'd won or that I didn't have to go back. Passchendaele was a disastrous battle—thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry. Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Charles Kuentz, Germany's only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We've had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it's a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn't speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?
Patch received eight medals and honours; for his service in the First World War, he received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. In 1998, as a surviving veteran of the First World War, who had fought for the Allies in France and Flanders, the President of the Republic of France made him a Knight of the Légion d'honneur. The award was presented to Patch on his 101st birthday. On 9 March 2009, Patch was appointed an Officer of the Légion d'honneur by the French Ambassador at his nursing home in Somerset. On 7 January 2008, Albert II, King of the Belgians, conferred upon Patch the award of Knight of the Order of Leopold. He received the award from Jean-Michel Veranneman de Watervliet, Belgium's Ambassador to the United Kingdom, at a ceremony in the Ambassador's residence in London, on 22 September 2008, which coincidentally was the 91st anniversary of the day he was wounded in action and three of his closest friends killed.
For service during the Second World War, Patch was awarded the 1939–45 Defence Medal. This was subsequently lost and on 20 September 2008, at a ceremony at Bath Fire Station, Patch was presented with a replacement medal. Patch also received two commemorative medals: the National Service Medal and the Hors de combat medal, which signifies outstanding bravery of servicemen and women, who have sustained wounds or injury in the line of duty. The medals are unofficial and not a part of the official order of wear in any Commonwealth realm. In accordance with his wishes, Patch's medals are displayed at the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Museum in Bodmin.
After the war, Patch returned to work as a plumber, during which time he spent four years working on the Wills Memorial Building in Bristol, before becoming manager of the plumbing company's branch in Bristol. A year above the age to be called up for military service at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, he became a part-time fireman in Bath, dealing with the Baedeker raids. Later in the war he moved to Street, Somerset, where he ran a plumbing company until his retirement at the age of 65.
Patch married Ada Emily Billington (1891–1976) at the Parish Church, Hadley, Shropshire on 13 September 1919. They had two children, Denis and Gordon. Ada died in 1976, aged 85. Patch subsequently married Kathleen Alice Joy at Mendip Register Office on 5 June 1982. Harry was 83 and Kathleen, known as Jean, was 80. Jean died aged 87 on 18 March 1989. At the age of 100, Patch moved to Fletcher House Nursing Home in Wells, where he found a companion in Doris Whitaker. Doris died on 19 March 2007, aged 92. Patch's sons, Denis and Gordon, both predeceased him.
Patch consistently refused to discuss his war experiences until approached in 1998 for the BBC One documentary Veterans, on reflection of which, and with the realisation that he was part of a fast-dwindling group of veterans of "the war to end all wars", he agreed. Patch was featured in the 2003 television series World War 1 in Colour and said "if any man tells you he went over the top and he wasn't scared, he's a damn liar". He reflected on his lost friends and the moment when he came face to face with a German soldier. He recalled the story of Moses descending from Mount Sinai with God's Ten Commandments, including "Thou shalt not kill" and could not bring himself to kill the German. Instead, he shot him in the shoulder, which made the soldier drop his rifle. However, he had to carry on running towards his Lewis Gun, so to proceed, he shot him above the knee and in the ankle. Patch said,
I had about five seconds to make the decision. I brought him down, but I didn't kill him… Any one of them could have been me. Millions of men came to fight in this war and I find it incredible that I am the only one left.
In November 2004, at the age of 106, Patch met Charles Kuentz, a 107-year-old Alsatian veteran, who had fought on the German side at Passchendaele (and served on the French side in World War II). Patch was quoted as saying: "I was a bit doubtful before meeting a German soldier. Herr Kuentz is a very nice gentleman however. He is all for a united Europe and peace – and so am I". Kuentz had brought along a tin of Alsatian biscuits and Patch gave him a bottle of Somerset cider in return. The meeting was featured in a 2005 BBC TV programme The Last Tommy, which told the stories of several of Britain's last World War I veterans.
In December 2004, Patch was given a present of 106 bottles of Patch's Pride Cider, which has been named after him and produced by the Gaymer Cider Company. In the spring of 2005 he was interviewed by the BBC Today programme, in which he said of the First World War: "Too many died. War isn't worth one life" and in July 2005, Patch voiced his outrage over plans to build a motorway in northern France over cemeteries of the First World War. In July 2007, marking the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Passchendaele, Patch revisited the site of the battle in Flanders, to pay his respects to the fallen on both sides. He was accompanied by historian Richard van Emden. On this occasion, Patch described war as the "calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings" and said that "war isn't worth one life". In August 2007, Patch's autobiography The Last Fighting Tommy, written with Richard van Emden, was published, making him one of the oldest authors ever. With the proceeds from this book, Patch decided to fund an Inshore Lifeboat for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and he attended the RNLI's Lifeboat College on 20 July 2007, to officially name the boat The Doris and Harry. In 2008, the poet laureate of the United Kingdom, Andrew Motion, was commissioned by the BBC West television programme Inside Out West, to write a poem in Patch's honour. Entitled "The Five Acts of Harry Patch" it was first read at a special event at the Bishop's Palace in Wells, where it was introduced by the Prince of Wales and received by Harry Patch.