HARRY PATCH, the last surviving soldier to have experienced the horror of the first world war trenches, has died aged 111.

Patch, who fought at the battle of Passchendaele in 1917, when 70,000 British troops were killed, died yesterday at his care home in Wells, Somerset. The Queen led the tributes last night, saying she was “saddened to hear of his death”.

Patch’s death came a week after his predecessor as the oldest British veteran, Henry Allingham, died at the age of 113.

The only living British man who served in the first world war is Claude Choules, 108. He served in the Royal Navy and lives in Perth, Western Australia. He is among only three acknowledged surviving veterans of the conflict.

Patch was staunchly anti-war and said he tried not to kill his German counterparts, attempting only to wound them in the legs.

He was born on June 17, 1898, in Combe Down, Somerset. He was conscripted into the army at 18, serving as a machinegunner in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.

In September 1917 during the fight for the village of Passchendaele, near Ypres in Belgium, a shell exploded above his head killing three soldiers who were with him. He was wounded in the groin.

While he was recovering in Britain Patch met his first wife Ada. They were married for 58 years and had two sons, Dennis and Roy, both of whom Patch outlived. Too old to fight in the second world war, Patch became a maintenance manager at a US army camp in Somerset and joined the Auxiliary Fire Service in Bath. After the war he went back to plumbing and retired in 1963.

Following Ada’s death in 1976, Patch married his second wife Jean at the age of 81. She died five years ago. His third partner, Doris, lived in the same retirement home. She died last year.

His final years were characterised by a rising profile. His autobiography, The Last Fighting Tommy, was published in 2007 and last year the poet laureate Andrew Motion wrote a poem The Five Acts of Harry Patch.

In 1999 Patch received the Legion D’Honneur medal awarded by the French to 350 surviving first world war veterans who fought on the western front, dedicating it to his three fallen comrades.

Alongside Choules, the last remaining first world war servicemen are John Babcock, 109, a Canadian soldier who finished his training but did not see action, and Frank Buckles, 108, an American who drove an ambulance on the western front.

Andrew Larpent, the chief executive of Somerset Care, said Patch had been unwell for some time and had died peacefully in his bed. He said: “His friends and his family have been here. He just quietly slipped away at 9am. “It was how he would have wanted it, without having to be moved to hospitals but here, peacefully, with his friends and carers.”

A memorial service marking the “passing of a generation” is expected to be held at Westminster Abbey in the autumn. The Queen and Gordon Brown are among those likely to attend.

Last night Prince Charles said: “Harry always cherished the extraordinary camaraderie that the appalling conditions engendered in the battalion.”

General Sir Richard Dannatt, chief of the general staff, said: “He was the last of a generation that in youth was steadfast in its duty in the face of cruel sacrifice.”

Gordon Brown said: “I had the honour of meeting Harry, and I share his family’s grief at the passing of a great man.”

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