I’m thinking of U.S. veterans specifically, but if anybody knows the numbers for other countries that would be great as well.
Thanks.
I know that in Canada, there are 10 left. At least that’s what the Ottawa service’s announcers said.
President Honors America’s Veterans
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, Virginia
I think I heard on an NPR broadcast this AM, that only 4 French Vets survive. I could have misheard.
More staggering was the numbers killed in the war. What a waste.
I read in the newspaper this morning that there were 40 french WWI veterans still alive.
In today’s RJ a feature was done on Nevada’s ** only ** WW1 surviving vet.The article also mentioned a number under 200 in the country.
And this one just moved to Nevada in’93 from Minnesota,so glitter gulch doesn’t seem to hold a fascination for those vets.
I’d imagine nursing homes hold a good percentage of them.
On CNN today they mentioned there are only 200 WW1 vets surviving in the United States, further confirming what other posters have said.
Well, the war ended on November 11, 1918. Assuming a few 16 or 17 year olds enlisted in the waning weeks of the war… the youngest possible WWI vets would be 101 years old.
So, a figure of 200 in the U.S. sounds about right. And probably a few dozen in each of the other major nations involved in the war.
This thread on the World War 1 Forum claims there are 44 living US veterans, citing what must be this Scripps Howard report.
Australia has 6 surviving Great War veterans.
Eric Campbell , the last of the original ANZACs (who landed at Gallipoli, Turkey in April 1915) died in May 2002.
I’ve heard figures ranging from 6 to 10 for Canada; nobody seems to be able to nail the number down for sure, which I find curious.
This is out of a contingent of about 650,000 men who served, at least 400,000 of whom went overseas during the war. (this out of a population of just eight million.) Of those, at least 60,000 died, so I would say we ended the war with either about 350,000 vets or 600,000 vets, depending on what you define a “Veteran” of the war as. This may explain the disparity.
I’m always suspicous of round numbers in news stories like this.
200 sounds like something I would have guessed. If it looks like a guess, IMO the fact the number was printed somewhere doesn’t add any authority to the figure.
The 200 number is probably old, and may reflect everyone who was enlisted at the time of the armistice. The 44 veterans are, if I understand correctly, actual overseas veterans. I’ve read that WWI veterans were not a separate category in the last census, so it’s hard to be sure.
Actually, that’s the number of French soldiers that survived the war.
There appear to be just 27 surviving UK WWI veterans. That’s including some who were still in training come the end of the war.
Apparently, the oldest W.W. I U.S. veteran died a day before Veterans Day.
http://newsobserver.com/news/story/3018079p-2761021c.html
Thanks for everyone’s answers to this question.
Figures from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs.
The estimated number of WWI vets on 9/30/03 was 952 (see data near the bottom of the page).
The 952 figure is awfully high, especially since there are only 144 WWI vets on their rolls. That figure is just an estimate based on the 1990 Census data. I’d put my money on the “almost 200” figure.
What surprised me is that there was still a parent of a WWI vet on the rolls in 2001.
Yod Sangrungruang, who had been Thailand’s last surviving World War I veteran, died last month at the age of 104.
Amen. 
I realized a few years ago that I would, barring freak accident or disease, outlive all WWI vets, and that was a sobering thought for some reason. WWI feels so far away, and yet it is so modern too. Despite all the horrors of WWII in Germany and Japan and everywhere else, I still find WWI to be more depressing to talk about and think about. I know, off topic, sorry.