LONDON (AP) – Alfred Anderson, the last surviving soldier to have heard the guns fall silent along the Western Front during the spontaneous “Christmas Truce” of World War I, died Monday at age 109. More than 80 years after the war, Anderson recalled the “eerie sound of silence” as shooting stopped and soldiers clambered from trenches to greet one another Dec. 25, 1914. His parish priest, the Rev. Neil Gardner, said Anderson died in his sleep early Monday at a nursing home in Newtyle, Scotland. His death leaves fewer than 10 veterans of World War I alive in Britain.
Born June 25, 1896, Anderson was an 18-year-old soldier in the Black Watch regiment when British and German troops cautiously emerged from the trenches that Christmas Day in 1914. The enemies swapped cigarettes and tunic buttons, sang carols and even played soccer amid the mud, barbed wire and shell-holes of no man’s land. The informal truce spread along much of the 500-mile Western Front, in some cases lasting for days - alarming army commanders who feared fraternization would sap the troops’ will to fight. The next year brought the start of vast battles of attrition that claimed 10 million lives, and the Christmas truce was never repeated. “I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence,” Anderson told The Observer newspaper last year. " “All I’d heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of bullets in flight, machine gun fire and distant German voices,” said Anderson, who was billeted in a French farmhouse behind the front lines. But there was a dead silence that morning, right across the land as far as you could see. We shouted ‘Merry Christmas,’ even though nobody felt merry. The silence ended early in the afternoon and the killing started again. It was a short peace in a terrible war."
During the war, Anderson served briefly as batman - or valet - to Capt. Fergus Bowes-Lyon, brother of the Queen Mother Elizabeth. Bowes-Lyon was killed at the Battle of Loos in 1915. Anderson was Scotland’s oldest man. In later years, Anderson spoke often of the guilt he felt over the loss of friends and comrades. “I felt so guilty meeting the families of friends who were lost,” he told The Times newspaper this month. “They looked at me as if I should have been left in the mud of France instead of their loved one. I couldn’t blame them, they were grieving, and I still share their grief and bear that feeling of guilt.”
'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung,
The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung
– John McCutcheon, singing about that particular Christmas
I read that in the paper today and thought what an incredible moment that had to have lived through.
Imagine being in a fight for your life with people you can’t see shooting at you, then to hear (according to the story I saw) caroling in German. The Americans responded with their own carols, then they all just wandered out of their trenches and had their Christmas.
Perhaps they meant that the whole thing came to a halt for a short time. A really amazing moment in history, and I can’t imagine anything like that happening again.
I first heard about this in, of all things, a Garth Brooks Christmas song. I checked up on it, and found it to be true! What an amazing thing to have been a witness to. What a shame that they found a way to simply stop fighting, and refused to.
Well, it’s not as if they had any real choice. The German troops were switched out and replaced with fresh Prussian soldiers who did feel like shooting at the British, ending the truce.
He was on TV only last week. The BBC ran two programmes called The Last Tommy about the last few remaining British serviceman from WW1. When they started filming the series in 2003 there were about 20 survivors , now it is down to 8. Alfred was also believed to be the last surviving holder of the Mons Star. Awarded to the participants of the first large-scale British battle of WW1. There is a an obituary to him in today’s TimesHere
Slight nit-pick , he was a Tommy and not a doughboy !
Much as I hate to nitpick a fine OP, Alfred Anderson would not have been a doughboy, which was the nickname given to American soldiers (esp. infantrymen) of World War I – although the name apparently dates back to the 1840’s.
Alfred would most likely have considered himself a “Tommy” , and since he was a member of the Scottish Black Watch regiment (and would have worn a kilt in battle) the Germans in the opposing trenches might have referred to him as a “Lady from Hell”.
Quite. I saw the thread title and thought “What a coincidence, there is a 109-year-old English veteran about the place too, I read about him the other week”. :dubious:
A shame to hear he’s gone at last, but an astonishing age to have lived to. I wonder how he felt about “They shall grow not old…”.
I first heard about the truce, of all places, in the Garth Brooks song. (YAY for an incomplete education!)
Another WW1 veteran died. The last one of his kind in New Zealand RIP Bob Rudd
Fark has a link about this up this morning.
Silent Night .Looks like it will be worth picking up.
Well, if you happened to read about him in some mad newspaper that called him English, I send no petards in your general direction. I just get damn snarky when bits of ignorance sneak through. Sort of a petard peeve, perhaps.
Eh, I can’t call out on anyone for snarking over ignorance, since I’m just the same (hence my reaction earlier). I just skimmed over the article I saw (in the Radio Times) but really ought to have noticed the words Black Watch. :rolleyes:
The paper quotes the local vicar as saying old Alfred had the full use of his faculties pretty much up to the end, and good for him. The auld wives will cry the coronach, and no mistake. What a life to have lived.
:rolleyes: :dubious: 
