National treasure Claude Choules - Australia's oldest man and the world's last surviving World War I veteran - has died, aged 110.

Mr Choules was a man who made the best of life and devoted himself to his family and country.

His fighting spirit helped him survive two world wars, and also live long enough to become the oldest man in WA and the last World War I veteran living in Australia.

His achievements and longevity also won him a starring role in a British documentary watched by millions.

But for Mr Choules, the mounting milestones and media interest from around the world in his later years increasingly paled in comparison to the importance of family.

His daughter, 80-year-old Anne Pow, said it was the good times he shared with family that he would talk about most, not the wars he described as “useless” and “destructive”.

The former naval explosives expert, who was also the last living person to have fought in both world wars, lived his last years in Gracewood Hostel in Salter Point, Perth, WA.

Born in Wyre Piddle, near Pershore Worcestershire, he was married for 80 years to Ethel, a Scottish children's nurse, who lived to 98.

From the age of 14, Mr Choules served in Britain's Royal Navy in WWI and witnessed the surrender of the German Imperial Navy in 1918 while serving aboard HMS Revenge.

In 1926, he was seconded to the Australian navy, in which he served through World War II until 1956. But Mr Choules always told his children that, though war featured moments of high danger, it was boring for much of the time.

He had a 41-year career as an explosives expert and then retired to cray-fishing in Safety Bay.

Mr Choules wrote an autobiography, The Last of the Last, which was released in 2009 and made him the world's oldest first-time published author at the age of 108.



There had been a flurry of interest in Mr Choules from around the world since he became Britain's last surviving World War I veteran in July 2009, but he didn't care much for the records.

In early 2010, his daughter Anne Pow explained how her father was focused on family rather than war stories.



``He doesn't do interviews anymore -- it's too exhausting for him,'' Ms Pow said.



``And the sort of questions he's always asked, he's not so interested in any more.



``He's had: `What do you think about the war?' questions over and over again and he's bored with all that now, not interested.



``When we talk about the past, it's about something we've shared as a family that's interesting to him.



``People always ask, `What do you put your long life down to?' and he says, `I just keep breathing.'



``He's very much a man of his time -- a very good man. He was a wonderful father and still is.''

The memories of his remarkable life are fortunately not completely lost, with the BBC documentary ‘Harry Patch - The Last Tommy’ immortalising them on film in 2006.

The television feature was named after British veteran Harry Patch, who died in 2009, but Mr Choules is very much the star.

Just 11 minutes in, the story moves to WA where Choules and his grand-daughter Jennifer Hesford attend the opening night of an exhibition of war paintings in Perth in 2006.

The display includes a portrait of Mr Choules, painted by his grandson Lindsay Pow, based on a photograph taken during the first world war when he was 15.

"You were so young," Jennifer says.

"I went straight into the navy - I never had a job anywhere," Mr Choules replies.

At just 14 years old, the young Briton lied about his age in order to join Britain's Royal Navy in 1916.

The painting reminded Choules of the six months he spent after the war at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys where he guarded 74 ships of the interned German fleet.

In June 1919, the German Commander decided to scuttle his ships after discovering the fleet was to be handed over to the Royal Navy.

Choules was on board HMS Revenge preparing for torpedo training.

"We had the torpedo in the tube all ready to fire and the ship was on the firing course and suddenly the captain's cease fire gong rang," said Mr Choules.

"Everybody panicked - we could tell by the vibration of the ship that we were increasing speed and we knew there was a panic on somewhere.

"We thought it must be in Scapa Flow where the Germans were.

"As we went through the entrance we could see the German ships - some of them had sunk and others were going over and sinking.

"We could see ships going all over the place.

"We said: ‘Thank Christ for that’, we had been here for nearly six months waiting for our war service leave, now we can all go home and get our service leave - the bastards are gone."

Mr Choules turned to the navy for security and purpose.

"You grew up in the navy and the navy was like your family," said Jennifer.

"The navy was my life," said Mr Choules.

"I lost my mother when I was about four - I can just remember my mother."

By the end of the war Mr Choules’ father was also dead.

"His family broke up so young," says Jennifer.

"He was only a little boy when his family split up.

"I think the navy took over the role of family for many years."

But it was the family that he created with his wife of 80 years, Ethel, that he was most deeply devoted to.

The love story between Mr Choules and Ethel began on a boat voyage from Britain – he was travelling down under to join the Australian Navy.

"I saw two girls leaning over the rail and looking at the White Cliffs of Dover and I was in uniform of course," Choules said.

"I sidled up to these two girls and one of them walked away and I walked after her - and that was my wife.

"She said to me afterwards, "Why did you walk away from the other girl that I was with looking at the Cliffs of Dover?" and I said ‘Because I fancied you and not the other girl’."

During World War II Mr Choules spent most of his days blowing up Japanese mines and prepared explosives to sink the Australian fleet in Fremantle harbour in the event of a Japanese invasion.

When the Japanese didn't arrive, Mr Choules found another use for some of the explosives.

"The crows used to come to our front garden and the kids used to complain about them keeping them awake," he said.

"So I said that I would settle it and blow them to blazes and as soon as that charge goes you won't hear another crow.

"The charge had hardly died down when you heard the birds cawing.

"I think the birds passed the message down the fence.”

Mr Choules retired from the navy in the decades after the Second World War and became a Cray fisherman for 20 years with Ethel.

When Ethel’s health began to go downhill, Mr Choules stayed close by her side.

"She had dementia for a couple of years before she died and we found out that he had been sleeping on the floor next to her bed,” Jennifer says.

"He would just lie on a piece of canvas on the floor.

"He wouldn't sleep anywhere else because granny might need him."

Anne tells of how “even right up to the end, they would sit and hold hands”.

"He has had such a remarkable life and to stay positive through all of that is huge," said Jennifer.

"Through the first world war and the fact that his parents died and one of his brothers died a year after the first world war through his injuries having been gassed."

"I have had the luckiest life in the world, I reckon," Choules says.

"If I had my time over again I'd do exactly what I did do.

"I couldn't beat it."



Originally published as Last WWI combat veteran dies, aged 110