The official ceremony for the last veteran of ww2

Another factor is that if you look at this list the oldest Russians actually left Russia and made a new home for themselves in other countries German and Finland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_people_by_country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_people_by_country

Good point!

In which case the person may have two official ceremonies, it might be a nice reconciliation if a Russian and German minister came?



It is a lot in terms of the oldest people, check the list above.

It is but its still less than the spilt on average which was my point, but you are right in terms of the top 10 three and half years separates a lot of places.

but the thing is you're still thinking in terms of the oldest veteran being amongst that group, they don't have to be they just have to be the oldest veteran. i.e there's no guarantee that they will be in the top 10, or even top 100 or top 1000
 

Md139115

Banned
This may be of relevance:

https://www.statista.com/chart/13989/when-the-us-will-lose-its-wwii-veterans/

It predicts that the last US WWII veteran will die somewhere between 2040-2045. We also apparently have 558,000 still alive but declining at a rate of 362 per day.

I also would like to point out something:

No good data seems to exist on how many UK veterans are still around. However, Britain raised about 5 million people compared to the US’s 16 million. We can thus guess that there are presently about 174,000 UK veterans.

Now... if Queen Elizabeth matches her mother’s age of 101, she would make it to 2027. The US is only predicted to have about 20,000 veterans still alive, so we could say that the UK would have less than 7,000. However, if she makes it just a few more years (and that seems entirely plausible given she never hit the gin & dubonnet as hard as the Queen Mother) say to 105 or 106, it is actually seriously likely that she could be among the last 1,000 UK survivors. Of course that would likely be overshadowed by her being one of the longest reigning monarchs in recorded history, but still interesting.
 
I think it all comes down to who we see as a veteran. Is the line drawn to only those who fought literally at the front, or do we accept also those in military-type duty elsewhere, also on the home front? How about all the womens' auxiliaries and underage boys and girls in similar work?

Then there is also immediate postwar work with similar risk as wartime duty. One local Finnish example is post-1945 sweeping of sea mines, say, a work in which over 2000 young men took part in during 1944-1950 and which was essentially as risky as similar work during the war, ie. you could die any day when engaged in this work. This work saw young conscripts die even when WWII proper had already ended, and in Finland the minesweeping veterans have been since the 1990s recognized as eligible to a similar status as wartime veterans who fought at the front, having risked death to work for the nation under military discipline in the Finnish Navy or coastal artillery.

The question presented in this thread is then not an easy one and to answer it will almost necessarily involve making some particular, perhaps political/ideological choices as to who one can call "a veteran".
 
This just makes me think about all those potential anti-aging treatments that might be on the horizon. What if they work? What if they’re deployable in time to give to a veteran of ww2? What if some society morphs back towards nationalism and, overblowing the events of the war, declares them to be the greatest in all of human history? What if an entire society is retooled around worship and replay of the war, making its importance basically religious in scope? (And I’m talking that Old Time religion here.) What if society determines a living link to the past is more important than the wishes of any one person? What if the last veteran is forced to take these longevity treatments, an imprisoned living Demi-god both powerful and powerless?

Dear god in heaven, WHAT IF!?!?!?!

What’s William Gibson up to these days? Anyone have his number?
 
TBH I wouldn't be so quick as to rule out Russia... here's where Russia come in, because of a few factors
...
3). Given the nature of the regime (and the nature of the resource intensive, all or nothing fighting) I suspect that there will be a higher percentage of underage combatants in the Russian forces that some (although maybe not as extreme as Germany)
There were Soviet child-soldiers in WW2 (the ”sons of the regiment”); rather than a result of “all or nothing fighting” they were usually frontline orphans with no next of kin who, lacking other alternatives, got adopted & raised by the soldiers. Usually they didn’t see frontline service though apparently some did act as scouts.

Though wiki tells me they never “officially” joined the Red Army so they might not fit the OP criteria.
 
I'm not so sure we should be so quick to ignore, say, Philippine veterans. While official conscription records may be spotty due to the destruction of Manila, at least a lot of the Resistance fighters had well-documented commanding officers (many of whom were pre-war US officers), who would presumably have decent knowledge about which of their subordinates had previous military service. Not to mention that a lot of documentation was done in the postwar era in the increasingly furile struggle to secure US veteran's benefits for them.

Yes, there are Marcos-style imposters (though he did serve, he exaggerated the nature of his service), but even in that case, the Americans had records they just suppressed for political purposes.

The bigger problem is who "counts" as a veteran. Like, to use the Marcos example, does a member of the armed forces who soon becomes a collaborator with the Axis an Allied "veteran?" Do Resistance forces count despite not strictly speaking belonging to an official military? If so, whay counts as induction?
 
There were Soviet child-soldiers in WW2 (the ”sons of the regiment”); ...
Though wiki tells me they never “officially” joined the Red Army so they might not fit the OP criteria.

Interesting link, thanks for the share, it explains a scene in a Russian movie, I saw about Stalingrad, I saw recently.

Here is a link that shows that there were many children that would fit into the definition of OP criteria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_use_of_children_in_World_War_II
 
I'd have to argue against Japan: toward the end, when the last veteran would have entered the war, Japan was undergoing increasing privation, so I doubt nutrition and medical care in early adulthood would have been all that good. That could generate chronic after-effects that might be at work.
 
I'd have to argue against Japan: toward the end, when the last veteran would have entered the war, Japan was undergoing increasing privation, so I doubt nutrition and medical care in early adulthood would have been all that good. That could generate chronic after-effects that might be at work.

Although Japan had food shortages late in the war they never had serious starvation plus they always had medical care, so compared to others eg Chinese, Europeans etc they were much better off plus the latest WHO data published in 2018 life expectancy in Japan is: Male 81.1, female 87.1 which is the highest in the world. Those males would have been in 1945, 7 years old and females 13 years. So these kids seem to have done okay.
 
I am going to bet on some German who got drafted into the Volkssturm or the Werwolf in 45 and fought some last ditch battle against the Soviets or Americans.

I actually had the luck of meeting one such person in 2015.

Guy was 16 years old and got drafted into a Luftwaffe Feldregiment in December 44. His unit faced the British and Americans in Baden in 45.

They got surrounded and surrendered.
 
I am going to bet on some German who got drafted into the Volkssturm or the Werwolf in 45 and fought some last ditch battle against the Soviets or Americans.

I actually had the luck of meeting one such person in 2015.

Guy was 16 years old and got drafted into a Luftwaffe Feldregiment in December 44. His unit faced the British and Americans in Baden in 45.

They got surrounded and surrendered.

One of my Mum's family was one of those kids and a had a similar story, unit was almost wipeout in its first combat, he saw his commander full of bullet holes and the kids surrendered.

From the point of view of this discussion the wiki makes this comment that makes me think your friend will miss out "On 12 February 1945, the Nazis conscripted German women and girls into the auxiliaries of the Volkssturm.[16] Correspondingly, girls as young as 14 years were trained in the use of small arms, panzerfausts, machine guns, and hand grenades from December 1944 through May 1945.[17]"

Also talking about Japan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Fighting_Corps

In March 1945, the cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso passed a law establishing the creation of unarmed civil defense units, Volunteer Corps (国民義勇隊 Kokumin Giyūtai). With the assistance of the Taisei Yokusankai political party, the tonarigumi and Great Japan Youth Party, units were created by June 1945.

The Kokumin Giyūtai was not combatant,... females of 12 to 45 years were members. They received training on fire fighting techniques and elementary first aid.

Reformation as militia[edit]
In April 1945, the Japanese cabinet resolved on reforming Kokumin Giyūtai into civilian militia. In June, the cabinet passed a special conscription law, and named the militia units Volunteer Fighting Corps (国民義勇戦闘隊 Kokumin Giyū Sentōtai).

The Kokumin Giyū Sentōtai would be organized, if the Allied landing unit close to the Japanese homeland. Governors of Prefectures could conscript all male civilians between the ages of 15 to 60 years, and unmarried females of 17 to 40 years.[1] Commanders were appointed from retired military personnel and civilians with weapons experience.
 
Last edited:
Woodrow Wilson Smith aka Lazarus Long dies on Center circa 45000 PD

Long times since I visited Lazarus Long but I cannot remember him serving in ww2, if he did though it would be hard to get offical papers to show it and if it was shown that he did serve would he come to the party?
 
Top