Claude Choules

Claude Choules
Claude Choules
Nickname	Chuckles
Allegiance	United Kingdom; Australia
Service/branch	Royal Navy; Royal Australian Navy
Years of service	1916 – 1956
Rank	Acting Torpedo Officer, Fremantle; Chief Demolition Officer
Battles/wars	World War I; World War II

Claude Choules (3 March 1901 – 5 May 2011)^[1] was a British-Australian World War I veteran who served in the Royal Navy.

Biography

Born in Wyre Piddle, son of Harry & Madeline (née Winn), near Pershore, Worcestershire, Choules joined the Royal Navy as a young man in 1916, and served aboard the Naval Training Ship HMS Circe at Plymouth. In 1917, he joined the battleship HMS Revenge, which was the flagship of the First Battle Squadron. While serving aboard her, Choules witnessed the surrender of the German Imperial Navy at the Firth of Forth in 1918, ten days after the Armistice, and was also to witness the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow. During World War II, Choules was the Acting Torpedo Officer of Fremantle and also the Chief Demolition Officer on the western side of the Australian continent. He was tasked with sabotaging Fremantle harbors and related oil storage tanks in the event of a Japanese invasion.

He died on 5 May 2011 in Perth, Western Australia at 110 years old.

Choules and his future wife Ethel Wildgoose, aboard SS Diogenes, 1926. They were married for 76 years until her death aged 98.
PO Choules aboard HMAS Canberra, 1929
HMAS Choules in December 2011
BritishWarMedalBAR
Ribbon, World War I Victory Medal
War Medal 1939–1945 (UK) ribbon
Australia Service Medal 1939-1945 BAR
UK Queen EII Coronation Medal ribbon
AUS Centenary Medal ribbon
Australian Defence Medal (Australia) ribbon