Raymond Abescat; French Veteran of World War I Was 109
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Raymond Abescat, 109, claimed by France’s Veterans Ministry to be the world’s oldest World War I veteran, died Saturday at a hospital in Rueil-Malmaison outside Paris.
Abescat, who would have turned 110 on Sept. 10, joined the military in October 1912 and spent seven years with an infantry regiment. In 1916, he was seriously wounded near Verdun, where fighting cost the lives of 250,000 French and German soldiers.
After the war, Abescat joined a state financing agency, where he worked until his retirement in 1957. He lived in suburban Paris.
The number of France’s surviving Great War veterans has dropped from about 1,500 to 250 in the last three years, according to the Veterans Ministry.
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