- Donald Hodge (veteran)
-
Donald Arthur Hodge (1894-1997) was one of the last surviving veterans of the First World War.
Hodge was born in Kent, England, and was educated at The Judd School in Tonbridge, where he has a house named in his honour. Following the outbreak of war, Hodge - like many others - enlisted in the armed forces with the illusion of being part of a glorious battle.
"I was in a crowd of other 18, 19, 20-year old boys and we thought it was going to be a tremendous lot to go and knock the Kaiser off his throne."[1]
Hodge survived the war, but with great regret - stating ""I lost all my youth, the best years of my life you might say and I lost so many friends. A few medals don't make up for that. Nobody wins in a war, they lost but we didn't win."[1]
In 1995, after passing 100 years old, Hodge was one of the veterans to appear in "Age of Hope" - the first part of the Emmy Award-winning BBC/PBS series "People's Century" - where he recounted his experiences of the war.[2] He also appeared in the second part of ABC's 1999 series "The Century: America's Time", in a segment entitled "Shell Shock - The Great War".[1] He was President of the British First World War Veterans’ Association.
References
- ^ a b c Donald Hodge - Biography - IMDb. Retrieved on 20 March 2009.
- ^ People's Century: Age of Hope - Full Program Description - PBS. Retrieved 20 March 2009.
This biographical article related to the British Army is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
