Book description
Henry Allingham is the last British serviceman alive to have
volunteered for active duty in the First World War and is one of very
few people who can directly recall the horror of that conflict. In
Kitchener's Last Volunteer, he vividly recaptures how life
was lived in the Edwardian era and how it was altered irrevocably by
the slaughter of millions of men in the Great War, and by the
subsequent coming of the modern age.
Henry is unique in that he saw action on land, sea and in the air
with the British Naval Air Service. He was present at the Battle of
Jutland in 1916 with the British Grand Fleet and went on to serve on
the Western Front. He befriended several of the young pilots who would
lose their lives, and he himself suffered the privations of the front
line under fire.
In recent years, Henry was given the opportunity to tell his
remarkable story to a wider audience through a BBC documentary, and he
has since become a hero to many, meeting royalty and having many
honours bestowed upon him.
This is the touching story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life -
one who has outlived six monarchs and twenty-one prime ministers, and
who represents a last link to a vital point in our nation's history.
Henry Allingham was born on 6 June 1896 in Clapton. He made
regular public appearances to educate modern generations about the war
until his death in July 2009 at the age of 113.
Dennis Goodwin is the founder of the World War One Veterans'
Association. He was awarded an MBE in the 2009 Honours list.
