WW2 Soldier Bear - 26 Jan 2008

Honour sought for 'Soldier Bear'

Voytek was billeted in the Borders (Imperial War Museum)


Archive footage
A campaign has been launched to build a permanent memorial to a bear which spent much of its life in Scotland - after fighting in World War II.
The bear - named Voytek - was adopted in the Middle East by Polish troops in 1943, becoming much more than a mascot.

The large animal even helped their armed forces to carry ammunition at the Battle of Monte Cassino.

Voytek - known as the Soldier Bear - later lived near Hutton in the Borders and ended his days at Edinburgh Zoo.

He was found wandering in the hills of Iran by Polish soldiers in 1943.


They adopted him and as he grew he was trained to carry heavy mortar rounds.

When Polish forces were deployed to Europe the only way to take the bear with them was to "enlist" him.

So he was given a name, rank and number and took part in the Italian campaign.

He saw action at Monte Cassino before being billeted - along with about 3,000 other Polish troops - at the army camp in the Scottish Borders.

The soldiers who were stationed with him say that he was easy to get along with.

"He was just like a dog - nobody was scared of him," said Polish veteran Augustyn Karolewski, who still lives near the site of the camp.

"He liked a cigarette, he liked a bottle of beer - he drank a bottle of beer like any man."

When the troops were demobilised, Voytek spent his last days at Edinburgh Zoo.

Mr Karolewski went back to see him on a couple of occasions and found he still responded to the Polish language.

"I went to Edinburgh Zoo once or twice when Voytek was there," he said.

"And as soon as I mentioned his name he would sit on his backside and shake his head wanting a cigarette.

"It wasn't easy to throw a cigarette to him - all the attempts I made until he eventually got one."

Voytek was a major attraction at the zoo until his death in 1963.

Eyemouth High School teacher Garry Paulin is now writing a new book, telling the bear's remarkable story.

'Totally amazing'

Local campaigner Aileen Orr would like to see a memorial created at Holyrood to the bear she says was part of both the community and the area's history.

She first heard about Voytek as a child from her grandfather, who served with the King's Own Scottish Borderers.

"I thought he had made it up to be quite honest but it was only when I got married and came here that I knew in fact he was here, Voytek was here," she said.

"When I heard from the community that so few people knew about him I began to actually research the facts.

"It is just amazing, the story is totally amazing."

Germany's 'last' WWI veteran dies - 26 Jan 2008

Germany's 'last' WWI veteran dies - 26 Jan 2008

Germany has no organisation to keep track of war veterans
The man believed to have been Germany's last World War I veteran has died peacefully at the age of 107.

Erich Kaestner, who at 18 was sent to the Western Front but served only four months in the army, died in a Cologne nursing home, his son said.

The death on Sunday of Louis de Cazenave, France's second-last World War I veteran, made global headlines.

But in a country that keeps no record of its veterans, Kaestner's death on 1 January went largely unnoticed.

"That is the way history has developed," said Peter Kaestner, the soldier's son. "In Germany, in this respect, things are kept quiet - they're not a big deal."

Erich Kaestner was unrelated to the writer and poet of the same name.

End of an era

Reports in Die Welt daily and Der Spiegel magazine identified Kaestner as Germany's last World War I veteran, but verification of the claim was difficult as the country keeps no record of its war veterans.

The German public was within a hair's breadth of never learning of the end of an era

Der Spiegel

In a country where the shame of the Nazi genocide and memories of two world war defeats still cast long shadows, both publications focused more on the German national psyche than the death itself.

"The German public was within a hair's breadth of never learning of the end of an era," wrote Der Spiegel, until someone updated his death notice on the internet encyclopaedia site, Wikipedia.

In its obituary for Kaestner, Die Welt noted: "The losers hide themselves in a state of self-pity and self denial that they happily try to mitigate by forgetting."

Officer, judge, husband

Born in 1900, Kaestner had joined the army when he left school in 1918.

He rejoined the military as a Luftwaffe first lieutenant in 1939, where he served mainly as a ground support officer in France.

After the war, he became a judge in Hanover, where his work earned him Lower Saxony's Merit Cross.

His 75-year marriage was recognised by Germany's president in 2003 shortly before his wife, Maria, died aged 102.

Brutal Egyptian Lives 25 Jan 2008

Evidence of the brutal lives endured by some ancient Egyptians to build the monuments of the Pharaohs has been uncovered by archaeologists.

Skeletal remains from a lost city in the middle of Egypt suggest many ordinary people died in their teenage years and lived a punishing lifestyle.

Many suffered from spinal injuries, poor nutrition and stunted growth.

The remains were found at Amarna, a new capital built on the orders of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, 3,500 years ago.

Hieroglyphs written at the time record that the Pharaoh, who was father of Tutankhamun, was driven to create a new city in honour of his favoured god, the Aten, with elaborate temples, palaces and tombs.

Along with his wife Nefertiti, he abandoned the capital Thebes, leaving the old gods and their priests behind and marched his people 200 miles (320km) north to an inhospitable desert plain beside the River Nile.

The city, housing up to 50,000 people, was built in 15 years; but within a few years of the Pharaoh's death, the city was abandoned, left to the wind and the sand
For more than a century archaeologists looked in vain for any trace of Amarna's dead.

But recently archaeologists from a British-based team made a breakthrough when they found human bones in the desert, which had been washed out by floods.

These were the first bones clearly identifiable as the workers who lived in the city; and they reveal the terrible price they paid to fulfil the Pharaoh's dream.

"The bones reveal a darker side to life, a striking reversal of the image that Akhenaten promoted, of an escape to sunlight and nature" says Professor Barry Kemp who is leading the excavations.

Painted murals found in the tombs of high officials from the time show offering-tables piled high with food. But the bones of the ordinary people who lived in the city reveal a different picture.

"The skeletons that we see are certainly not participating in that form of life," says Professor Jerry Rose, of the University of Arkansas, US, whose anthropological team has been analysing the Amarna bones.

"Food is not abundant and certainly food is not of high nutritional quality. This is not the city of being-taken-care-of."

The population of Amarna had the shortest stature ever recorded from Egypt's past, but they would also have been worked hard on the Pharaoh's ambitious plans for his new capital.

The temples and palaces required thousands of large stone blocks. Working in summer temperatures of 40C (104F), the workers would have had to chisel these out of the rock and transport them 1.5 miles (2.5 km) from the quarries to the city.

The bone remains show many workers suffered spinal and other injuries. "These people were working very hard at very young ages, carrying heavy loads," says Professor Rose.

"The incidence of youthful death amongst the Amarna population was shockingly high by any standard." Not many lived beyond 35. Two-thirds were dead by 20.

But even this backbreaking schedule may not be enough to explain the extreme death pattern at Amarna.

Even Akhanaten's son, Tutankhamen, died aged just 20; and archaeologists are now beginning to believe that there might also have been an epidemic here.

This corroborates the historical records of Egypt's principal enemy, the Hittites, which tell of the devastation of an epidemic caught from Egyptians captured in battle around the time of Tutankhamen's reign. It appears this epidemic may also have been the final blow to the people of Amarna.

Timewatch: The Pharaoh's Lost City is on BBC Two on Saturday, 26 January at 2010 GMT

France Honours Black US Veteran of WWI

Friday, 24 August, 2001, 11:05 GMT 12:05 UK
France honours black US veteran

US troops were segregated according to race

American World War I veteran William Brown has been given a 107th birthday surprise.
Mr Brown, who lives in Las Vegas, was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French Government on Thursday.



In my life I never cared about a person's nationality, the colour of their skin or anything else

William Brown
The French award came because private Brown and other black soldiers from the US expeditionary forces were segregated from the white troops and assigned to French units when they disembarked in France in June 1918.

The grandson of slaves, Mr Brown says he has no bitterness for the segregation.

"In my life I never cared about a person's nationality, the colour of their skin or anything else, because we are all God's people," he told reporters.

Draft

Mr Brown was drafted in 1918, and managed to escape the war unscathed.

"I never cared for war - I have always been a man of peace," he said.

"I couldn't wait until I got out. I was lucky to get out without being wounded. My brother was gassed and caught a little shrapnel."

After the war, Mr Brown had a variety of jobs, and retired to Las Vegas in the 1970s.

When the French government awarded the legion of honour-its highest national honour- to 900 US World War I veterans in 1998, Brown was overlooked.

Legion of Honour

Since then his niece Jennie Jefferson has campaigned to win him recognition.

The result was his naming as a Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion of Honour of France in Las Vegas on Thursday.

The US Office of Veterans Affairs calculates there are some 2,200 surviving American World War One veterans.

Last Updated: Friday, 3 March 2006, 17:16 GMT
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France rediscovers WWI veterans

Mustard gas survivor Rene Riffaud now lives in Normandy

France has rediscovered two elderly men who fought in the First World War, boosting the number of surviving veterans from five to seven.

Francois Jaffre, aged 104, was assumed dead by authorities but was in fact living in a retirement home near Paris.

And Rene Riffaud, now 107, was added to the list of WWI veterans after a campaign by his granddaughter.

Millions died during the 1914-1918 war, but just a handful of elderly veterans survive today.

France is expected to mark the death of its last WWI veteran, or "poilus", with a national commemoration.

Fighting men

Authorities lost track of the two men over the years for different reasons.

Much of World War I was fought on French soil
The National Veterans' Office lost track of Mr Jaffre, who joined the navy in 1917, when he moved home many years ago.

According to the French newspaper Le Monde, he served on a submarine hunter that escorted US ships across the Atlantic from New York.

For many years after the war he lived in Paris, but moved to a retirement home in the Yvelines region and forgot to tell the veterans' office.

Tunisia-born Mr Riffaud fought as an artilleryman in the Ardennes forest in the north-east of France, where he was affected by poisonous mustard gas.

Dwindling band

Hamlaoui Mekachera, the French veterans' minister and son of a former WWI soldier, hailed the rediscovery of the two men.

"We are very happy. Instead of there being five of them, there are seven, and I hope they will remain among us for a very long time," he told LCI TV.

"It is not impossible that we could discover some more. There have been two cases in one week," he said, although he admitted that it was unlikely.

France's oldest surviving veteran, Maurice Floquet, celebrated his 111th birthday on Christmas Day.

Another veteran, 107-year-old Ferdinand Gilson, died last weekend.

WWI Veterans Recall

Friday, 9 November 2007, 11:44 GMT


Surviving WWI: Veterans' stories
Ahead of Remembrance Sunday, Britain's surviving World War I veterans talked to Charles Wheeler for the BBC's Ten O'Clock News about their memories of the conflict.

Harry Patch
Harry Patch, who is 109 years old, was called up for service in 1917 when he worked as an 18-year-old apprentice plumber in Bath.

World War I veteran Harry Patch

Mr Patch fought at the battle of Passchendaele in Belgium - a conflict that lasted three months and cost nearly 500,000 lives on both sides.

That summer was one of the wettest on record and no-man's land became a sea of mud where men drowned cowering from machine-gun and sniper fire.

Speaking about life in the trenches, Mr Patch said: "If any man tells you he went into the front line and wasn't scared, he's a liar."


Claude Choules, who is now 106, served in the Royal Navy during the Great War. He signed up in 1916 when he was just a boy.


World War I veteran Claude Choules

"We used to see hospital ships coming across and soldiers being wheeled off them," Mr Choules said, recounting his time in the Navy.

During the war, the Germans inflicted significant damage on the British fleet, notably at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the largest clash of big-gun battleships of all time.

While serving on HMS Revenge in 1918 Claude Choules witnessed the mass surrender of Germany's imperial Navy.

In the 1920s he was seconded to the Royal Australian Navy as an instructor. He stayed in Australia and he now lives in Perth.



William Stone, 107, is one of only two ex-serviceman still living in Britain to have served in both world wars.


Veteran William Stone

Mr Stone joined the Navy on his birthday in 1918 and served until 1945. His strongest memories are of World War II and the Battle of Dunkirk.

"One of our ships, Skipjack, was bombed and she just disappeared. Two hundred soldiers and all the crew were killed", he said.

Mr Stone, who now lives near Wokingham, was presented with the National Veterans' Badge in 2004, for his service to the UK.


Syd Lucas, 107, was called up in 1918 and saw service in both world wars.


Veteran Syd Lucas

Mr Lucas was the youngest of three brothers. Both his siblings fought in France.

He said: "The youngest one of the two was blown up twice but he didn't get any bad injuries and the other one was shot through the finger, that's all he got. They were lucky."

Mr Lucas was trained in Derby and then Yorkshire but when the war ended in November he was sent home before he had to leave the country.

He emigrated to Australia between the two wars and has a son and a daughter who are now 78 and 82.




At 111-years-old, Henry Allingham is the oldest survivor of World War I.


Oldest veteran Henry Allingham

Mr Allingham is the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland in 1916, before joining the Royal Flying Corps and serving on the French front.

Now a resident at St. Dunstan's, a home in Brighton for ex-servicemen, he makes frequent trips to France to speak to school children.

During a visit to the graves of servicemen he said "all of us must remember them, always".

Veteran, 109, revisits WWI trench

The Germans suffered the same as we did

Harry Patch

The last known surviving British soldier to have fought in the trenches of World War I has revisited the site where he fought 90 years ago.

Harry Patch, 109, from Somerset, made the trip to Belgium to recall his part in the Battle of Passchendaele which claimed 250,000 British casualties.

He also went to pay homage to the tens of thousands of German soldiers who lost their lives.

Tuesday marks the anniversary of the start of the Battle of Passchendaele.

Badly wounded

Mr Patch served with the Duke of Cornwall's light infantry and was called up for service while working as an 18-year-old apprentice plumber in Bath.


During the fighting Mr Patch was badly wounded and three of his best friends were killed when a shell exploded just yards from where he was standing.

He made the trip with historian Richard van Emden, who helped Mr Patch write down his memories.

Wreath laid

Mr van Emden showed him the five miles they advanced over 99 days which claimed 3,000 British casualties every dayMr Patch was also shown a recently discovered panoramic photograph of the fields taken in 1917.

"Too many died. War isn't worth one life," said Mr Patch.

He said war was the "calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings".

Mr Patch laid a wreath at the site of the trench, which now forms part of a German war cemetery.

War effort

"The Germans suffered the same as we did," he said.

Germany also had heavy losses in the battle which has been described as one of the bloodiest and most brutal of the Great War.

The Battle of Passchendaele was officially known as the Third Battle of Ypres - the name of the principal town within a bulge in the British lines.

British commanders wanted to reach the Belgian coast to destroy German submarine bases following a warning that a blockade would soon cripple the war effort.

There was also the prospect of a Russian withdrawal from the war which would strengthen the Germans on the Western Front.

Battle of Passchendaele

BATTLE OF PASSCHENDAELE
The battle lasted from 31 July to 6 November 1917
An initial bombardment of German positions involved 4.5m shells and 3,000 guns
The battle was infamous for the mud - shelling had churned clay soil and smashed drains
The heaviest rain for 30 years made the mud so deep men and horses drowned
The battle ended when British and Canadian forces captured Passchendaele
The village was barely five miles beyond the starting point of the offensive
There was a total of 325,000 Allied and 260,000 German casualties



French soldier Lazare Ponticelli (pictured), 110
British pilot Henry Allingham, 111
Austro-Hungarian artilleryman Franz Kunstler, 107
A small number of other veterans are also still alive