Vet Buckles Honored

Martinsburg Journal - Martinsburg, WV, USA

POSTED: December 31, 2008


CHARLES TOWN - Jefferson County's Frank Woodruff Buckles, 107, became the last known surviving American World War I veteran early this year, after Harry Richard Landis, 108, died Feb. 4.

Buckles has since received numerous honors, including a visit to the White House to meet President Bush on March 6. Buckles was also the guest of honor the same day at the Pentagon, where a WWI veterans portrait exhibit was unveiled.

The portraits of Buckles and other World War I veterans were taken by photographer David DeJonge and then donated to the Pentagon for a permanent exhibit.

Of the nine veterans who sat for portraits beginning in 2006, only two are still alive: Buckles, along with John F. Babcock, who is now 108. Babcock served in the Canadian Army in WWI and the U.S. Army in the 1940s, and he lives in Spokane, Wash.

Buckles entered the Army on Aug. 14, 1917, when he was just 16. He served two years overseas during World War I, in England and France, where he worked as an ambulance driver and an escort.

He was later captured as a prisoner of war at the beginning of World War II, when he was working as a civilian for a shipping company in the Philippines. Buckles spent more than three years in Japanese prison camps, and he was rescued on Feb. 23, 1945.

He and his wife, Audrey, bought Gap View Farm near Charles Town in January 1954. His wife passed away in 1999, but his daughter and son-in-law live with him now.

This year he was also honored by Gov. Joe Manchin, who named a portion of W.Va. 9 in Buckles' honor during April.

Recently, Buckles talked about how quickly the numbers of veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam are diminishing, and how he never expected to become the last American survivor of World War I.