Mary Braid: Britain Hunting Memories From Last Of WWI Veterans
'I could never take it in,' says Henry Allingham, shaking his head. 'Men you had been speaking to but half an hour before burning alive and there was nothing you could do to help.' At the age of 109, the UK's oldest man and First World War veteran, is talking in his Eastbourne flat about the war that was supposed to end all wars.
A jolly, optimistic old man, Mr Allingham finds it very painful to remember the conflict, but as Remembrance Sunday approaches he is prepared to recall the awful reality of the hostilities that claimed millions of lives, lest we forget those who fought and died beside him.
'They were men who gave all they had to give,' he says. 'We didn't want war and neither did ordinary Germans but it's like everything else ... ' He trails off as if at a loss to explain the impasse.
Three years ago there were 60 British veterans who could, like Mr Allingham, talk from searing personal experience of the horrors of 1914-18. Now there are fewer than 20.
Mr Allingham is the only one who can speak as an airman, soldier and sailor, for he served in all three of the armed forces, surviving the battles of Jutland and Passchendaele.
He remembers the fear of night-sailing across seas spiked with landmines. 'In the day you could spot them, but not in the dark. One hit and everyone died,' he says.
But it is the men of the trenches that he still feels most for. He witnessed their nightmare as he transported weapons to the front.
'They couldn't dig down " six inches and they hit water,' he says. 'So they built sandbags up eight feet high. Oh, the hardship " standing knee-deep in rat-infested water for two weeks at a time. Everyone was infested with lice.'
A jolly, optimistic old man, Mr Allingham finds it very painful to remember the conflict, but as Remembrance Sunday approaches he is prepared to recall the awful reality of the hostilities that claimed millions of lives, lest we forget those who fought and died beside him.
'They were men who gave all they had to give,' he says. 'We didn't want war and neither did ordinary Germans but it's like everything else ... ' He trails off as if at a loss to explain the impasse.
Three years ago there were 60 British veterans who could, like Mr Allingham, talk from searing personal experience of the horrors of 1914-18. Now there are fewer than 20.
Mr Allingham is the only one who can speak as an airman, soldier and sailor, for he served in all three of the armed forces, surviving the battles of Jutland and Passchendaele.
He remembers the fear of night-sailing across seas spiked with landmines. 'In the day you could spot them, but not in the dark. One hit and everyone died,' he says.
But it is the men of the trenches that he still feels most for. He witnessed their nightmare as he transported weapons to the front.
'They couldn't dig down " six inches and they hit water,' he says. 'So they built sandbags up eight feet high. Oh, the hardship " standing knee-deep in rat-infested water for two weeks at a time. Everyone was infested with lice.'