Florence Green, the last known World War I veteran, passed away on Tuesday at age 110 in her home. Green joined the Women’s Royal Air Force in 1918 at age 17. Green died just two weeks short of her 111th birthday. Read more after the jump.
Florence Green, the world’s last known veteran of World War I, has died at the age of 110, the care home where she lived said Tuesday.
Briar House Care Home in King’s Lynn, England, said Green died Saturday, two weeks before her 111th birthday.
Born Florence Beatrice Patterson in London on Feb. 19, 1901, she joined the Women’s Royal Air Force in September 1918 at the age of 17.
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.
Green remembered her wartime service with affection.
“I met dozens of pilots and would go on dates,” she said in an interview in 2008. “I had the opportunity to go up in one of the planes but I was scared of flying. I would work every hour God sent. But I had dozens of friends on the base and we had a great deal of fun in our spare time. In many ways, I had the time of my life.”
She was officially recognized as a veteran when a researcher found her service record in the National Archives.
The RAF marked her 110th birthday in February 2011 with a cake.
Asked what it was like to be 110, Green said “It’s not much different to being 109.”
The war’s last known combatant, Royal Navy veteran Claude Choules, died in Australia in May.
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.
