HotmailOldest WWI survivor remembers forgotten ones
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 Soldier's surprise Veteran's Day return Nov. 11: A St. Louis-area teacher brought her two children to the school's Veterans Day celebration, not telling them their father, on leave from Iraq, was there. KSDK's Mike Garrity has the story. |
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Silent wounds
As a mechanic, Allingham's job was to maintain the rickety craft. He also flew as an observer on a BE2c, a plane with so little power that a strong wind might push it backward. At first, his weaponry consisted of a Lee-Enfield .303 rifle — sometimes two. In a time of limited radio capability, the airmen flew with two carrier pigeons that would be released with coordinates tied to their feet in case of water landing, so searchers could track the wreckage. They weren't issued parachutes.
He remembered a pilot who landed his plane after being shot, only to bleed to death while his comrades looked on.
"I've wondered since, if I had known first aid and applied pressure to the wound, could I have saved his life?" Allingham wrote. "I've thought about that a lot over the years."
When it was over, he and his wife, Dorothy, had two daughters and he eventually got a job at Ford. During World War II, he worked on measures to counter magnetic mines. But after that, he didn't talk about wars and armies for the better part of five decades. He wrote that it just wasn't done — people wanted to forget and move forward.
Allingham retired to the seaside town of Eastbourne and played golf until his eyesight failed at 93. Dorothy died in 1970, but when daughter, Jean, died in 2001, friends say he mostly waited to die, too.
The past comes out
That's when he met Dennis Goodwin, an independent inspector for residential care homes, who had discovered that elderly men were often not getting the care they needed to address their war nightmares.
Goodwin found himself organizing trips for veterans who wanted to return to the continent where they had fought and pay their respects to fallen comrades. Goodwin encouraged Allingham to share his experiences.
Soon, Allingham began talking to reporters and school groups. He found himself leading military parades. He met Queen Elizabeth II. He wrote his autobiography with Goodwin, "Kitchener's Last Volunteer," a reference to Britain's war secretary who rallied men to the cause. Prince Charles wrote the introduction.
"I still can't believe that all this happens to me," he wrote.
David Burner, the concierge of the Crowne Plaza Hotel where he often stays in London, says Allingham tends to "sparkle when pretty girls come up to him." Goodwin's wife, Brenda, says he sometimes breaks into song. Peter Dye, the museum's head of collections, says Allingham's been known to hit the dance floor in his wheelchair and attempt a conga.
"If he goes a bit too far, his slippers fall off," Dye says.
'They died for us'
But it was a subdued Allingham who attended the exhibition opening. The soft lights set off his pale skin and made him glow at the center of the guests milling around the roped-off enclosure.
He sat in his wheelchair, a blanket with the target-like emblem of the Royal Air Force draped over his knees. The medals pinned to his navy blue jacket glistened.
Tears ran from his watery eyes, his body slumped to the side. He was tired. It's a big responsibility to represent so many now gone. But he's determined.
He'll be at the Cenotaph on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 90 years after guns fell silent.
"I want everyone to know," he says. "They died for us."
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