by: Tyler B.
Frank Buckles, the last World War 1 doughboy, died at the age of 110 on February 28, 2011. He was born on February 1, 1901 in Harrison County, Missouri.
When Buckles went to the Kansas State Fair in Wichita he was only 17 but he went to the Marine Corp recruiting station, and lied about his age and said he was 18. The sergeant said he was too young and he had to be 21 years old. He went to the Marine Corp recruiting station again and stated that he was 21, but the sergeant said he was not heavy enough to enlist. Than Buckles tried the Navy and he past the test, but they were suspicious about his age and said he was flat footed so he could not join. He tried elsewhere and got rejected by the Navy and the Marine Corp, so he tried the Army, but they asked for a birth certificate. So Buckles lied once more, and he said where he was born they didn’t have birth certificate they recorded it on public records, but he said he had it in his family bible and they took it.
On August 14, 1917 he was enlisted in the United States Army. The old sergeant that let him in said the quickest way to get in was to go in the ambulance service because France was begging for there services. So Buckles was sent to Fort Riley, Kansas, to begin his training in trench body retrieval and ambulance operation.
When Buckles went over to France he was in the Fort Riley Casual Detachment of 102 men. The men sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey to via Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1917 on the famous HMS Carpathia the ship that rescued the Titanic. When they arrived in Scotland they offloaded and went to England to await the Cross Channel shipment to France. While he was in England he drove a Ford ambulance, a motorcycle with a side car and a Ford car.
After he was in England for a couple weeks he requested to see his commanding officer Colonel Jones of the 6th Calvary when he asked to be sent to France Colonel Jones said he wants to go to France but has to stay where he is sent to. Buckles was then assigned to take an officer that was left behind to France and he was part of the American Expeditionary Force for 2 years until he came home aboard the USS Pocahontas. When he got home, he was paid $143.90 including a $60 bonus.
When Buckles was home, he was at several jobs; one working at midnight earning 60 cents a hour than he worked at a bank for a little while. After that he wanted be in the steamship business but had to have some sea experience first, so he went to the Western World where he saw a lot of cultures and languages.
Then when the United States went in to World War 2, Buckles accepted a job to take cargoes for the presidents in Manila. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines he extended his stay for another 31/2 while in a prison camp. In 1945 he was rescued by the 11th airborne division.
After he came home, Buckles lived in San Francisco and got married. After that, he picked up and moved to West Virginia where his family and 10 other families settled in 1732. Buckles stayed until he died on February 28, 2011 at the age of 110.
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