Some Older News: New National Monument-- Europe's Oldest Man and WW I Veteran

I found some old items while looking through my archives and found them of interest, so will write about them now.

NEW NATIONAL MONUMENT-- President Bush has asked the secretaries of Defense and the Interior to look into making Pearl Harbor and other Pacific sites into a national monument: "These objects of historic and scientific interest may tell the broader story of the war, the sacrifices made by America and its allies, and the heroism and determination that laid the groundwork for victory in the Pacific and triumph in World War II."

EUROPE'S OLDEST MAN AND WORLD WAR I VETERAN-- From the Guardian.co.uk "RAF flypast for Europe's oldest man." A Hurricane and a Spitfire will do a flypast in honor of Henry Allingham who turned 112 this week.

He was born in 1896, the same year the first Modern Olympics were held and Queen Victoria became the longest reigning monarch in British history.

Henry Allingham is also one of Britain and the world's last remaining veterans of World War I. He was at the Battle of Jutland, the greatest naval clash of the war. In 1917, he was posted to France to service and rescue aircraft that had crashed behind trenches at Ypres and the Somme.

While there, Allingham fell into a shell hole full of legs, arms, ears, rotten flesh in no-man's land and has never forgotten the stench of death.

He was guest of honor at RAF College Cranwell near Sleaford, Lincolnshire.

For eighty years, he did not speak of his wartime service.

Allingham remains in good health and lives in St. Dunstan's home for blind veterans in Brighton.

In November, he will join two other surviving British World War veterans, Henry Patch, 109, and Bill Stone, 107 at the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day at the Cenotaph in London.

Unfortunately, all three of these men died this year.

As We Are Now Down to One US World War I veteran Still Living.