A chapter of American history is officially closed.
Frank Buckles the last surviving American veteran of World War II, died of natural causes Sunday at age 110 in his Charles Town, W. Go. Home, a family spokesman, said in a statement.
Eager to serve his country and escape the tedium of farm life in Missouri, Buckles told the Daily News in 2008 that he lied about his age to enlist.
He was 16 when he sailed to France in 1917 to join the ambulance service with serial number 15577 to 4,700,000 Americans served in "The war to end all wars" against Germany.
"I always knew it would last, because I was one of the youngest when I arrived," Buckles said in his interview with the Daily News, after it became the last surviving member of the 4.7 million.
"But I never thought I'd be the last."
Even after the war could not escape the battlefield Buckles. In 1941, Buckles was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines while working as a purser on a steamship. It languished for more than three years in prison camps before being rescued in a military raid.
"I was never really in search of adventure," Buckles told the AP again. "He comes to me."
He did not seek the fame that came their way in 2008, when the veteran second-to-last American World War II, Harry Richard Landis died in Florida. But when he reached the position of the veteran survivor, buckles, helped dedicate the lobby of a District of Columbia World War II Memorial National Mall in Washington as a national monument.
Over buckles, there are only two surviving veterans of the War documented left - 109 years and years Claude Choules 110, Florence Green, both British.
"Someone has to go down. If I am the last, then one is doing it," said Buckles News.
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