Alfred Anderson

From Freepedia

Alfred Anderson (born June 25, 1896) is a British World War I veteran. He was batman to Fergus Bowes-Lyon, brother of the Queen Mother, for a short time, and is the last known member of the armed forces who was involved in the war during the 1914 Christmas Truce.

Leaving his home in Newtyle, Angus, in October, with the 5th Battalion of the Black Watch, he travelled by train from Dundee to Southampton, before taking a ferry to Le Havre in France. Surrounded by a group of friends with whom he had joined the Territorial Army in 1912, he thought he was going on a grand adventure.

On December 24 and 25, his unit was billeted in a farmhouse away from the front line, so he did not participate in any of the famous football matches that took place. However, he can vividly remember the day and says:

'I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence. Only the guards were on duty. We all went outside the farm buildings and just stood listening. And, of course, thinking of people back home. All I'd heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of bullets in flight, machinegun fire and distant German voices.

'But there was a dead silence that morning, right across the land as far as you could see. We shouted "Merry Christmas", even though nobody felt merry. The silence ended early in the afternoon and the killing started again. It was a short peace in a terrible war.'

In 2003, when his service as batman to Fergus Bowes-Lyon (who was killed in 1915) came out, Prince Charles went to visit him. He was awarded the Legion d'Honneur in 1998.

About Christmas, he says, 'I'll give Christmas Day 1914 a brief thought, as I do every year. And I'll think about all my friends who never made it home. But it's too sad to think too much about it. Far too sad.'

See also

Surviving Veterans of the First World War