Talk:List of last surviving World War I veterans

Possibility
Since it's unlikely (hopefully) that the remaining WWI veterans will all die in 2009, perhaps this page should be renamed in 2010 to something like "List of veterans of World War I who died after 2008" or "List of veterans of World War I who died in 2009-201X" etc., since there are so few remaining. Just a thought. Cheers, CP 04:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree Paul. And please read my message below!!!! Signed: User:NickOrnstein

John Campbell Ross
Died June 3 2009:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/australias-oldest-man-soldier-dies-aged-110-20090603-buy4.html Ryoung 122 02:47, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Sante Dal Santo
He used to be an unverified veteran before his death on 26 February 2009. I believe that he should be added here as a verified veteran. Here is a report on his death. Signed: User:NickOrnstein

List Order
Previous pages have listed veterans in national and then alphabetical order...it seems here that the "five" veterans are listed in reverse chronological order, but not the three "era-vets" so there is a lack of consistency here. Ryoung 122 03:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Lauri Nurminen
See the google translation of the finnish wiki article linked in the headline. When Lennart Rönnback died in 2007, he was considered the last white guard from the Finnish civil war in 1918, but later mr Nurminen has been discovered. He was not yet 12 when he is said to have joined Ernst Linders troops in Nokia, Finland - seems a bit early, but it's easy to see why Linder may have had use for this boy - Linder lived his life in Sweden before the finnish civil war, and didn't understand finnish, neither did many others on the white side, so a boy who knew both languages would be useful in interrogation of captured enemy soldiers etc. I'm not completely sure of the meaning of all the machine translated text, so a finnish speaker reading the wiki article + the linked news article could perhaps tell us more? Mr Nurminen died in february 2009, so he may also rob Aarne Arvonen of the title last surviving veteran from the conflict. Hepcat65 (talk) 23:01, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Now I've had the finnish article dechiphred by a native finnish speaker. Apparently I misread when the google translation was calling young Nurminen a transmitter - I thought about translater, but the finnish word in question actually means he was a Runner (war)/Courier in Linder's troops during the fight for Nokia. After the heavy fighting at Kalevankangas he fighted with the home guards until the invasion of Tampere was over and the white side won. He fought in Finlands two wars 1939-40 and 1941-44, too, and his rank at the end was sergeant. The article] mainly talks about the custom since 1933 to fabricate "pine swords" to decorate coffins for white guard veterans, a custom that now comes to an end, as he was the last one. Noone objects, so I'll include him. Hepcat65 (talk) 14:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

douglas terrey year of birth
doug terrey claimed he was born in 1903 but on the 1911 census it says he was born in 1904, here is the link.--Tony W (talk) 15:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC) 1. Census ages are not accurate 2. Birth registration is in 1903 3. He was born in June; Census was taken in April SiameseTurtle (talk) 15:38, 9 September 2010 (UTC)


 * All of which are excellent reasons why we disallow original research. Canadian   Paul  16:15, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

new name for article
because it is going to be 2011 soon, will this article be changed to List of veterans of World War I who died in 2009-2011Tony (talk) 19:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * But there is a chance that No Veterans will die this year since we are down to so few Surviving Veterans —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.98.40.217 (talk) 18:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Then it can be extended to cover 2012 as well. Reach Out to the Truth 19:01, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

doug terrey
doug terrey would of celebrated his 108th birthday on the 23rd june, RIP Mr terrey 1903 - 2010 Tony (talk) 00:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

title for article
because it is 2012 we will have to change the title of this article, should we name it something like List of veterans of World War I who died in 2009-12 or List of veterans of World War I who died in 2009-Present, any other suggestions? Tony (talk) 21:27, 1 January 2012 (UTC)


 * We can't use "2009-present", because we must use precise language, so 2009-12 is the best idea unless we wanted to use something like "after 2008" as suggested above. I really have no preference towards either one. Canadian   Paul  21:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

2012 or 2013
Should this list go until 2012 or 2013 since the last Veteran (albeit an Era Veteran) didn't die until 2013. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.98.19.20 (talk) 19:50, 12 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Well if the "surviving veterans" page was deleted after the last veteran (rather than era veteran) died, then it might be inconsistent to list this page up to 2013. So the options as I see them would be to leave it as it is, as a reflection of the surviving veterans page (which, as pointed out, is very strange since "2012" is in the title and there is a 2013 entry), to remove all the era-veterans (which consensus seems to be against), or, the best one in my opinion, rename this page "List of veterans of World War I who died after 2008" as I suggested above. The latter would be consistent with both the article content and what was done with the "surviving veterans" page. Canadian   Paul  18:43, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/List of veterans of World War I who died in 2000
In light of the recent deletion discussion, which looks like it is going in the direction of deletion, I believe we should consider having a set number of veterans for this list, merged from, say, the 2007 and 2008 lists, as those articles do have veterans who have their own articles. —  AMK152  (t • c) 05:14, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

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New title, or merge with "List of last World War I veterans by country"
It's clear from the history of this page here and its title that editors have been struggling for some time. As things are now, the title raises the question why the cut-off point for the "last surviving" veterans should be 2009 (and not e.g. 2007, 2008 or 2010). And the overall question is why this separate page is necessary; by now it's been close to ten years that there are no more surviving veterans of World War I, and there is already a comprehensive page List of last World War I veterans by country. In order to avoid deletion, like it eventually happened with the various 1999 through 2008 pages, we should come up with a better title and intrinsic purpose of this page, or move the information to the other page and make that one more detailed. - Toothswung (talk) 10:22, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal
The proposal is to merge List of last World War I veterans by country into this article

Such a list as this here may have several definitions for inclusion. Broadly, a veteran is somebody that has served in the military. A war veteran has served in a war, though "active service" may not mean "combat service". That article (List of last World War I veterans by country) takes a very narrow view for inclusion (a military veteran) while List of last surviving World War I veterans takes a more holistic view and reports claimants for the different criteria that exist. From the title of either article, one would expect to find "war veterans" but that is not the case. That article duplicates some of what is covered at List of last surviving World War I veterans. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:15, 11 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I stuffed up the OP because I was dealing with two so similarly named articles. The OP has been revised from original. The proposal is to merge into this article. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:49, 18 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I carried out the merger since it seemed like prior people on both talk pages agreed with merging the 2 lists into one and nobody objected to your merge proposal, plus I agreed with it too and thought it was a good idea. I carried out the steps listed at WP:MERGETEXT successfully. The merged article may need some further editing but at least now there is just one article listing the last surviving World War I veterans instead of 2 different redundant ones with different arbitrary criteria. This just combines both lists and both criteria for an article that isn’t too short or too long and covers the topic of listing the last surviving World War I veterans better than either of the articles that got merged. Of course people are free to make further improvements now that the lists have been merged. But I think this merger should prove to be uncontroversial. The talk page for the article that was merged into this one is at Talk:List of last World War I veterans by country for future reference, and it also has an archived page at Talk:List of last World War I veterans by country/Archive 1 too. —yetisyny (talk • contribs) 07:41, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Anthony Delahoy, British - Merge with "List of last World War I veterans by country"
Anthony Delahoy, born 13th January 1923, aged 100, is now living in Edinburgh, Scotland. He joined the British Armed Forces in January 1942 – on his 19th birthday – and trained as a gunner with the Royal Artillery Anti-Tank Regiment. Aged 21, he journeyed to German-occupied France as a despatch rider with the 55th Anti-Tank Regiment and on June 7 joined the D-Day landing as part of the Battle of Normandy. TrevorRD (talk) 08:41, 25 June 2023 (UTC)