WWI last combat veteran Claude Choules dies aged 110

Born in Britain, Choules, known to his comrades as Chuckles, joined the Royal Navy at 15 and went on to serve on HMS Revenge.

He moved to Australia in the 1920s and served in the military until 1956.

Choules reportedly died in his sleep at a nursing home in his adopted city of Perth. He had been married to his wife Ethel for 76 years, who died three years ago.

He is survived by three children and 11 grandchildren.

Choules' 84-year-old daughter, Daphne Edinger, said "We all loved him. It's going to be sad to think of him not being here any longer, but that's the way things go."

Born in Pershore, Worcestershire, in March 1901, Choules tried to enlist in the Army at the outbreak of WWI to join his elder brothers who were fighting, but was told he was too young.

He lied about his age to become a Royal Navy rating, joining the battleship HMS Revenge on which he saw action in the North Sea aged 17.

Choules remembered WWI as a "tough" life, marked by occasional moments of extreme danger.

After the war he served as a peacekeeper in the Black Sea and in 1926 was posted as an instructor to Flinders Naval Depot, near Melbourne. It was on the passenger liner to Australia that he met his future wife.

During World War II he was chief demolition officer for the western half of Australia. It would have been his responsibility to blow up the key strategic harbour of Fremantle, near Perth, if Japan had invaded.

At the age of 80, he undertook a creative writing course to record his memoirs for his family. They formed the basis of the autobiography, The Last of the Last, which was published in 2009.

The last three WWI veterans living in Britain - Bill Stone, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch - all died in 2009.

Another Briton, Florence Green - who turned 110 in February and was a waitress in the Women's Royal Air Force - is now thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of WWI. An American veteran, Frank Buckles, died earlier this year.