World’s last known WWI veteran dies at age 110

KING'S LYNN, England -- Florence Green, the world's last known veteran of World War I, has died at the age of 110, on Feb. 4, two weeks before her 111th birthday.

She was born Florence Beatrice Patterson in London on Feb. 19, 1901. At the age of 17, she joined the Women's Royal Air Force in September 1918. She went to work as a waitress in the officers' mess at RAF Marham in eastern England, and was serving there when the war ended in November 1918.

She was officially recognized as a veteran when a researcher found her service record in the National Archives. The war's last known combatant, Royal Navy veteran Claude Choules, died in Australia in May. (See our related story here.) After his death, Green became the war's last known surviving service member from the war, according to the Order of the First World War, a U.S.-based group that tracks veterans.

Frank Woodruff Buckles, the last-surviving U.S. WWI veteran, had died just a few months before Choules. (See our related story here.)

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