Henry John Patch (17 June 1898 – 25 July 2009), dubbed in his later years "the Last Fighting Tommy", was an English supercentenarian, briefly the oldest man in Europe, and the last surviving trench combat soldier of the First World War from any country. Patch was not the longest-surviving soldier of the First World War, but he was the fifth-longest-surviving veteran of any sort from the First World War, behind British veterans Claude Choules and Florence Green, Frank Buckles of the United States and John Babcock of Canada. At the time of his death, aged 111 years, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day, Patch was the third-oldest man in the world, behind Walter Breuning and Jiroemon Kimura, the latter of whom would become the oldest verified man ever. Early life Harry Patch was born in the village of Combe Down, near Bath, Somerset, England. He appears in the 1901 Census as a two-year-old boy along with his stonemason father William John Patch (1863–1945), mother Elizabeth Ann (née Morris) (1857–1951) and older brothers George Frederick (1888–1983) and William Thomas (1894–1981) at a house called "Fonthill" in Gladstone Road. The family are recorded at the same address "Fonthill Cottage" in the 1911 census. His elder brothers are recorded as a carpenter and banker mason. Longevity ran in Patch's family; his father lived to 82, his mother to 94, his brother George to 95 and his brother William to 87. Patch left school in 1913 and became an apprentice plumber in Bath. First World War In October 1916, during the First World War, he was conscripted into the British Army as a private, reporting for duty at Tolland Barracks, Taunton. During the winter of 1916–17 he was promoted to lance corporal, but was demoted after a fistfight with a soldier who had taken Patch's boots from his billet, and he saw no further promotion. Patch went through a series of short-lived attachments to several regiments, including the Royal Warwickshire Regiment before being posted after completing training to the 7th (Service) Battalion, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, serving as an assistant gunner in a Lewis gun section. Patch arrived in France in June 1917. He fought on the Western Front at the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) and was wounded, when a shell exploded overhead at 22:30 on 22 September 1917, killing three of his comrades. He