Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
Youngest Second World War Veteran
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 16th May 2009
How old would the youngest Second World War veteran be now?
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Message 2
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Saturday, 16th May 2009
At the other end of the scale, there was a piece on another site that the oldest U S soldier of the present conflict was K I A by a roadside bomb in Iraq. He was 60. He had served in Veitnam, and after 9/11 wanted to rejoin, but his wife begged him not to. After her death, he returned to the colours. Do we have any front line soldiers of 60 still serving?
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Message 3
Posted by MB (U177470) on Saturday, 16th May 2009
Probably depends how you define "veteran".
I believe some members of the Air Training Corps assisted the RAF and some were killed (58 in the CWGC database with some aged 16 so other 16 year cadets presumably served and were not killed).
A 17 year old schoolboy was in one of the ships taking part in the Normandy landings as a member of the ROC. -
Message 4
Posted by ambi (U13776277) on Saturday, 16th May 2009
I would imagine some of the German Volksturm (if they survived the war let alone until the present day) might qualify; the footage of Hitler pinching the cheek of a boy soldier in 1945 particularly sticks in the mind.
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Message 5
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Saturday, 16th May 2009
Vizzer
I will assume you mean youngest to see active service before the Japanese surrender in August 1945.
Generally, British servicemen under WWII conditions would not see active service until they were 19 (although some 18 year olds did see service), so that would make such men 83.
However, I believe that by the end of the war, the Royal Navy was taking "Boy" sailors to sea again. Realistically, they would not go to sea until they were 17, and the last ships to reach the British Pacific Fleet before the end hostilities left the UK in early 1945. So it might be possible that there is a BFP veteran who is still a sprightly 81. -
Message 6
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Saturday, 16th May 2009
The Royal Navy took 16 year olds to the Falklands in 1982 and were still recruiting 15 year olds in 1972 when the school leaving age was raised. Not sure, but I think a 14 year old boy stoker was wounded on HMS Amethyst in the 1949 'incident'.
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Message 7
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Saturday, 16th May 2009
JB
Agreed. But they stopped doing it during WWII and only began again when recruiting for Regular service began again in late 1944.
My understanding is that there was "Boy" and Apprentice service throughout the war (one of my relatives joined the Army on boy service in 1943), but they were not sent on active service until they had reached adult service.
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Message 8
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Saturday, 16th May 2009
Youngsters also served on M N ships. I should imagine some would have been lost on convoys.
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Message 9
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Saturday, 16th May 2009
did anyone notice that today the youngest british soldier - 18 years and a few days - is going to afghanistan
pray that is a loooooong career move
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Message 10
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Tuesday, 19th May 2009
Thanks for those replies.
I suppose I was expecting that there would be some sort of definitive answer. For example the age of conscription was 18 and so someone reaching their 18th birthday on, say, 1 May could have been conscripted and then saw 6 weeks basic training which would have taken them to mid-June and then went on a troop ship to the Pacific arriving in August in time for the Japanese surrender. That person then would have been born on 1 May 1927 and would have recently celebrated their 82nd birthday.
As has been shown, however, there is no easy answer to this question as LongWeekend has shown with the phenomenon of boy sailors etc which could suggest that there are UK veterans who are still only in their seventies. And, of course, as dukess has pointed out there were also the very young members of the German Volksturm. Just how young were some of those kids 13? - even younger?
A 13-year-old in May 1945, for example, would now be 77. Were there perhaps Japanese or Soviet etc equivalents to these boy soldiers - does anyone know? -
Message 11
Posted by Steelers708 (U1831340) on Tuesday, 19th May 2009
The young boy shaking hands with Hitler is Wilhelm 'Willi' Hubner who was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class in March 1945, at the time he was 16 and was serving in a HitlerJugend combat unit when the Germans recaptured Lauben in Lower Silesia from the Russians in March 1945, he along with others were presented to Hitler in Berlin in April, when this and other photos were taken, they are generally accepted as the last photos taken of Hitler.
Members of the HJ as young as 12 served in various capacities throughout the war including Luftwaffe Flak units, the RAD, Fire Service Auxiliaries and right at the end in combat units.
It is also known that girls of the BDM served in HJ Regiment Frankfurt/Oder and saw action against the Russians at the end of the war.
I would therefore think that there are several thousand Germans alive who actually fought in the war and are relatively young. -
Message 12
Posted by Silver Jenny (U12795676) on Tuesday, 19th May 2009
My OH met a Canadian who had been a 15 year old captain in Hitler Youth and gone into battle leading other youngsters. Almost all died and he was left for dead but a Canadian soldier found him, captured and took him back to their MO and subsequently back to Canada where he remained after the War.
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Message 13
Posted by Hugh (U524974) on Sunday, 28th June 2009
On the 6th of July 2009, the youngest serving British casualty of WWII (Reginald Earnshaw, Merchant Navy) aged just 14 years and 152 days will have a headstone erected by the CWGC at Edinburgh Comley Bank Cemetery. Reginald was lost on 6th July 1941 on ss NORTH DEVON. He finally gets honoured on the 68th anniversary of his death. Lest We Forget.
Regards
Hugh
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