Friday, March 16, 2012

Death of World War I and World War II Veteran William Stone

I am going back to news I wrote down in my notebooks, but didn't put into this blog today.

From the Jan. 30 Times (Britain) Online.

Mr. Stone served in the British Navy during both World Wars and died Jan. 10, 2009, seeing action only during the Second World War as he was in training when the first one ended. He enlisted in the Navy at age 18 and served 27 years.

He was buried in Oxfordshire churchyard with The Last Post being played and a bell tolled 108 times, one for each year of his life. He was the last surviving Briton to serve in both wars.

In the 1820s, he served aboard the HMS Hood.

During World War II, he was aboard a minesweeper that made five trips across the English Channel and rescued 1000 men from Dunkirk, calling that the most scared he ever was in action. He later served in the Arctic Convoys, did minesweeping at Murmansk and the Mediterranean, and was torpedoed twice.

Mr. Stone was a chief petty officer on the HMS Newfoundland when it was torpedoed by U-407 during the invasion of Sicily.

On November 11, 2008, he marked the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I woth fellow veterans Henry Allingham and Harry Patch at London's cenotaph.

At the same time as his funeral, there was another one going on in Devon for Travis Maclean, 22, killed while on patrol in Afghanistan.

The End of an Era Approaching.

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