Claude Choules, the last remaining male combat veteran of World War I and known as ‘Chuckles’ by his comrades, has died in a Perth nursing home. He was 110 years old. He was born in Worcestershire in 1901, he served with the Royal Navy onboard the HMS Impregnable in 1916 at the age of just 15, before joining the battleship HMS Revenge in 1917 and witnessing the surrender of the German Fleet near Firth of Forth in Scotland in 1918.
Mr Choules emigrated to Australia in 1920 and moved to Fremantle where he was seconded to the Royal Australian Navy in 1926. It was on the liner that first took him to Australia that he met his future wife Ethel. They were married on December 3, 1926 and later settled in Western Australia. His wife died in 2003 at the age of 98 after they had been married for 76 years, and he spent his final years in a nursing home.
After serving in the military for 41 years he retired and published his first book at the age of 108. he leaves three children, 13 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren
