Facebook attempt to remember Allied soldiers killed in Belgium

A drive is underway here in Belgium to attempt to create Facebook pages for each of the 27,594 Allied soldiers who were killed in Belgium during WWII and are buried in Belgian cemeteries, men from countries including the U.S., Britain, France and Australia.

High school students are each being asked to research the lives and battles of a chosen soldier and with the help of archives kept by the Institute for Veterans, produce a Facebook page for each one with photos, audio and video. It is hoped relatives of the dead soldiers will submit whatever documents and other evidence they have.

The first Facebook page created as part of that project honors Lance Cpl. Thomas Leslie Cartwright of High Wycombe, England. Cartwright was killed in fighting in 1944and is buried in the Kasterlee War Cemetery in northern Belgium along with 99 comrades of the British Army's Royal Scots.

The plan is to have each soldier documented on Facebook by 2014, when the country will mark the 70th anniversary of Belgium's liberation.

"You are only dead if no one talks about you anymore," said Pol Van Den Driessche, a Belgian senator who launched the project, known as "Live and Remember."

Frank Buckles... America's last World War I veteran

It makes all the difference in the world. All of you who express your thanks, who fly your flags, who put those sappy bumper stickers on your cars and yellow ribbons your mailboxes ... you have no idea how much it helps and how much you are appeciated by htese guys.

It is everything. And it makes it all worthwhile.

World War I.......last men standing

Following the death of the Italian-French war
veteran Lazare Ponticelli this week, a total of nine men who served in their countries'
armed forces during World War I are known to be still alive around the world.
The list, in order of seniority:

- Henry Allingham of Britain, aged 111. The only survivor to have served
from beginning to end of the conflict, he started in the Royal Navy and then
ended in the Air Force, seeing action at the Somme.

- Yakup Satar of Turkey, aged 109. Signed up in 1915 for the Ottoman Army,
worked with the Germans, notably on gas weapons, and was captured in 1917 in what is now Iraq.

- Harry Patch of Britain, 109. Called up in 1917 and saw action in the
trenches of the Belgian front, including during the murderous 3rd Battle of
Ypres. Injured by a shell in the same year.

- Delfino Borroni of Italy, 109. Joined an elite unit in 1917 and notably
fought against Austro-Hungarian forces in the Tyrol.

- Francesco Chiarello, also of Italy, 109. Called up in 1918 and saw action
in his country's final battles of the war.

- Frank Buckles, United States, 107. Joined up by lying about his age when
his country entered the war in 1917 and served as an ambulance driver in
England and France.

- John Babcock of Canada, aged 107. Was sent to Britain as a junior soldier
with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1917, but did not see action because
he was too young.

- Franz Kuenstler of Germany, aged 107. Joined a Hungarian artillery unit
in February 1918, and served in Italy. Only survivor of the Austro-Hungarian
forces.

- Claude Choules of Britain, aged 106. Joined the Royal Navy in 1916 and
served in the North Sea while only a teenager.