About Frank Buckles
Frank Woodruff Buckles (born Wood Buckles; February 1, 1901 – February 27, 2011) was a United States Army corporal and the last surviving American veteran of World War I. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917 at age 16 and served with the 1st Fort Riley Casual Detachment in Europe, where he worked as an ambulance driver and later helped escort prisoners of war. During World War II, Buckles was working as a civilian in the shipping business in the Philippines when Japanese forces captured him. He spent more than three years as a civilian prisoner of war, including captivity at the University of Santo Tomas internment camp and Los Baños. During the war, Buckles drove ambulances and motorcycles for the Army's 1st Fort Riley Casual Detachment, first in England and then France. Buckles was awarded the World War I Victory Medal at the conclusion of that conflict, and the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal retroactively following the medal's creation in 1941, as well as the French Legion of Honor in 1999. Buckles witnessed antisemitism and its effects firsthand while ashore in Germany, and he warned acquaintances in Germany that their country would be brought down by Adolf Hitler, whom he encountered at a German hotel.
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