LAURENCE KESTERSON / Staff Photographer
Frank Woodruff Buckles in his home in Charles
Town, W.Va., in 2009. “I never thought I’d be
the last one,” he said.

LOS ANGELES – Frank Woodruff Buckles, 110, the last known living American veteran of World War I who later spent three years in a Japanese POW camp during World War II, died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Charles Town, W.Va., family spokesman David DeJonge said. When 108-year-old Harry Landis died in Sun City Center, Fla., on Feb. 4, 2008, Mr. Buckles became the war’s last standing U.S. veteran. “I always knew I’d be one of the last because I was one of the youngest when I joined,” Mr. Buckles, then 107, told the New York Daily News. “But I never thought I’d be the last one.”

A total of 4,734,991 Americans served in the military during World War I.

Earning that distinction resulted in many honors for Mr. Buckles. In March 2008, he met with President George W. Bush at the White House, then attended the unveiling of an exhibit at the Pentagon of photographic portraits of nine World War I veterans, including himself, who had lived to 100 or older.

He was born Feb. 1, 1901, on a farm near Bethany, Mo., and moved with his family to a farm in Oklahoma’s Dewey County as a teenager. When the United States entered the war in April 1917, he was eager to enlist, even though he was only 16.

After being rejected by Marine and Navy recruiters, he tried the Army. When the recruiter asked to see his birth certificate, he said that Missouri did not keep birth records when he was born and that the only record was what was written in the family Bible. His word was good enough for the Army.

Mr. Buckles enlisted Aug. 14, 1917, and went through basic training at Fort Ripley, Kan. “I was a snappy soldier,” he told USA Today in 2007. “All gung-ho.”

Mr. Buckles said an old sergeant told him, “If you want to get to France in a hurry, then join the ambulance service.” He shipped off to England in December 1917 on the RMS Carpathia, the ocean liner that had rescued survivors of the Titanic in 1912.

Initially stationed in England, where he drove dignitaries around, he successfully hounded his officers for an assignment in France. He never got close to the action. But, as he told columnist George F. Will in 2008: “I saw the results.” When the war ended, he remained in Europe to help escort prisoners of war back to Germany.

After returning home a corporal, he attended business school in Oklahoma City for several months and, among other jobs, worked for a bank. But he grew bored.

Satisfying a desire for adventure, he got a job with the White Star Line shipping company and traveled the world. He was in Manila when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and was among the Western civilians later taken prisoner. He spent about 31/2 years at the Santo Tomas and Los Banos internment camps. At Los Banos, he said in a 2009 interview with The Inquirer, he once saw three prisoners nearly beaten to death. “There was no mercy as far as the Japanese were concerned,” he said.

Mr. Buckles was liberated in February 1945. After returning home, he married Audrey Mayo, whom he had met in California before the war. In 1954, they moved to a 330-acre West Virginia cattle farm. “I had been bouncing around from one place to another for years at sea,” he said in 2007. “It was time to settle down.”

He told The Inquirer that he always knew he’d live a long life: His father died at 97, a sister at 104.

Mr. Buckles’ wife died in 1999. He continued to live on his farm and reportedly drove a car and a tractor until he was 102. He is survived by his daughter, Susannah Buckles Flanagan.

Only two known veterans remain, according to the Order of the First World War, a Florida group whose members are descendants of WWI veterans. They are Claude Choules, who turns 110 this month and served in Britain’s Royal Navy and lives in Australia, and Florence Green, a member of Britain’s Women’s Royal Air Force, who turned 110 in February and lives in England. http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/117132263.html