Core Facts
- The lives of fallen comrades and heroes who have died serving Queen and Country are being celebrated on www.lastingtribute.co.uk, a leading UK memorial website.
 
- Harry Patch, who at 110 is Britain’s last surviving veteran of the First World War trenches, has left a message on www.lastingtribute.co.uk on a page dedicated to General Douglas Haig.
 
- Haig, who died on 29 January, 1928, was both an icon of military history and a much-maligned historical figure.
 
- As commander of the British forces at the Somme and Ypres, Gereral Haig eventually won out a battle of attrition and determination against Germany on the Western Front.
 
- Gereral Haig’s plan to unify British troops into a single force and his subsequent leadership during the final push were hailed as crucial factors in the Allied victory.
 
- For Harry Patch, his Remembrance Day is actually September 22. It was that day in 1917 that Harry lost three of his friends when their Lewis gun team was smashed by an explosion that left him badly injured.

Quotes
- Harry, who is Britain’s last veteran of the trench warfare that raged throughout the First World War, his view of Haig remains the same after all these years. Harry’s message on Lasting Tribute reads: “As someone who was there, I am often asked what I thought of our Commander-in-Chief, as if I must have an opinion. All I can say is that sometimes Haig’s intelligence was good, other times it was rotten. But we didn't talk about him among ourselves, in the trenches or out at rest.
 
- In his book, Harry Patch, The Last Fighting Tommy, Harry pays tribute to the young men who died as they fought the enemy in atrocious conditions that few could ever imagine. He wrote: “I had lost three good mates. The Lewis gun team was a little band together and the last three, the ammunition carriers, had, I understood, been blown to pieces. My reaction was terrible; it was losing a part of my life. I’d taken an absolute liking to the men in the team, you could say, almost love.”
 
- In other sections of the book, Harry remembers Bob Haynes, who was the “Number 1” of his Lewis gun team. Harry says: “The team was very close-knit and it had a pact. It was this: Bob said we wouldn’t kill, not if we could help it. He said, “We fire short, have them in the legs, or fire over their heads, but not to kill, not unless it’s them or us.”
 
- Elaine Pritchard, from Lasting Tribute, commented: “Harry witnessed a terrible episode in history but he found the courage to record what he saw and how he feels now. There are many messages on Lasting Tribute that have been left in honour of service personnel who have died around the world in many different conflicts through the years.”

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