Raymond Abescat

Raymond Abescat (September 10, 1891 in Paris – August 15, 2001 in Rueil-Malmaison) was one of the last surviving veterans of World War I in France, its oldest man and the oldest veteran in France at the time of his death. He died a mere 26 days before his 110th birthday.

Abescat joined the military in October 1912 and spent seven years with an infantry regiment. Immediately following the French declaration of war, his unit was mobilized and sent to the Belgian Frontier to await the German advance. During their first engagement his company lost all but 80 soldiers, most of those were injured. Mr. Abescat was slightly injured in that fight. In 1916, he was seriously wounded near Verdun, where fighting cost the lives of 250,000 French and German soldiers. His leg was amputated late in life, in part, due to that old war wound. To his dying day, he kept several small, shell fragments that had been taken from his leg in 1916.

After the war, Abescat joined a state financing agency where he worked until his retirement in 1957.

His memory was very clear until the end of his life. As such he was interviewed several times. Segments of his recollections appear in several documentaries. In one he recounts visiting the Exposition Universelle of 1900. He died on the 15 August 2001, he died less than one month before his 110th birthday.