WWI vet, now 107, to attend unveiling of portraits at Pentagon

ARLINGTON

They once numbered in the tens of thousands. Today, their numbers have dwindled to just two. But U.S. veterans of The Great War, "The war to end all wars," are not being forgotten.

They will be honored at the Pentagon on Thursday with the unveiling of portraits of World War I veterans made by photographer David DeJonge.

Defense Robert M. Gates will host the unveiling ceremony at 12:45 p.m. in the Pentagon Auditorium.

DeJonge, who is based in Grand Rapids, Mich., began documenting veterans in 1996. In 2006, he began a project to photograph America's last surviving veterans of WWI, the Pentagon said today in a press release.

DeJonge partnered with the Department of Veterans Affairs and located and photographed the last known surviving WWI veterans. He has donated his portrait collection to the Pentagon.

Within weeks of their portrait sessions, five of the nine WWI Veterans died. They ranged in age from 105 to 110 and served in the Army and Navy. Today, there are only two known surviving WWI veterans.

• John Babcock of Spokane, Wash., served for Canada in WWI and later in the U.S. Army in the 1940s. He became an American citizen in 1946.

• Frank Woodruff Buckles, who lives in Charles Town, W. Va., joined the Army in 1914 at age 15. He served in England, France and Germany during WWI, assigned to the 1st Fort Riley Casual Detachment. He later served in the Pacific Theater during WWII and was held as a civilian prisoner of war at Los Banos, Philippines.

A native of Harrison County, Mo., Buckles, now 107, will be the guest of honor at Thursday's event.

He is one of many veterans featured in "Experiencing War," part of the  Veterans History Project at The Library of Congress.

"It's best for anyone who's been in the military service if he's had some disagreeable experiences ... to talk about it and get it out of his system and then forget it," he said in an audio interview for the project.

Buckles lied to a military recruiter to get into the Army, according to the Project's biography on him. He then pestered his officers to be shipped out to France.

He drove motorcycles, cars and ambulances in England and France, and during the occupation of Germany at the conclusion of hostilities, he guarded German prisoners. He returned home after leaving the Army in 1920.

Buckles eventually went to work for the White Star steamship line and was in Manila on business in December 1941 when the Japanese attacked. He spent three years as a prisoner at the city's University of Santo Tomas.

His collection in the Library of Congress archive includes two interviews, given when he was 100 and 103 years old.

His audio interviews offer a wealth of details of life in military service World War I with some of his unique experiences from the Second World War.

He recalls shipping out to England for World War I onboard the Carpathia, the ship which rescued survivors of the Titanic. He speaks of how he finally won assignment to France and then of experiences there, including going through the mess line a second time so that he could give food to hungry French children.

While escorting German soldiers back to their homeland as prisoners, he was delayed getting back aboard the prison train during a stop and ended up riding in a freight car with the prisoners. Years later in Brazil, he met up with a man who had been among those prisoners.

He has tales of using cigarettes as currency while on leave in France and staying at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Biarritz, France – and overstaying his leave and being charged with going AWOL. But his punishment was waived by an envious noncom.

In other stories of guarding German prisoners, he recalls an incident where an American guard got drunk during the day and the prisoners carried him back to camp in a wheelbarrow.

His World War II recollections include how it was to be in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked in December 1941 and what life was like as a prisoner for more than three years. Part of that was a sense of abandonment, felt by people in the Orient during WWII, as the U.S. first focused on defeating Nazi Germany in Europe.

Steve Stone, (757) 446-2309, steve.stone@pilotonline.com