UK News 05-08-2004 Tears Of The Last Survivors who: Last living survivor of two world wars, William Stone what: Marks 90th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I where: The Cenotaph, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Like the opening bar of Beethoven`s Fifth, the 11 o`clock chime of Big Ben rings deep in our history. It is the bell of war, of armistice, of remembrance," writes Alan Hamilton in The Times this morning. "As its sonorous toll rippled the hot, still London air yesterday morning, four very old men with a combined age of 421 years lined up by the Cenotaph, the empty tomb that is the nation`s principal memorial to the fallen. Each man was older by at least two decades than the monument itself." Aged 103, William Stone, a former Royal Navy chief petty officer who is the last surviving veteran of both world wars, read John McCrae`s 1915 poem `In Flanders Fields` to mark the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I on August 4th, 1914. A little more than four years after that day, "more than 8.5 million soldiers of all nations lay dead," recalls The Independent, "some 900,000 of them from Britain and the Empire. A quarter of the male British population went to fight; close to three million of them were either killed or wounded." A crowd of hundreds at the Cenotaph yesterday included three other centenarians - Royal Naval Air First Mechanic Henry Allingham, 108; Royal Artillery Private Fred Lloyd, 106; and Devonshire Regiment Private Jack Oborne, 104. "When it started I didn`t know what to expect," says Mr Allingham, Britain`s oldest veteran, quoted in The Independent, who was moved to tears by the ceremony. "I thought we`d win, I thought we wouldn`t have to fight again like that for 100 years. I will never forget my comrades. You cannot think about the morbid things that took place. If you did, you could not go on. But on days like this I pray for them." [... more]

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