The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day....

I knew an officer who was in Vietnam when the war ended. Eight in the morning (local time) on January 28, 1973. He told me it was the longest night of his life, but he had one thought: I live though tonight, I live forever!

Fortunately he did live through that night, although he has since passed on.

But I found this page on the end of World War I. By the way, if you haven't see it, watch They Shall Not Grow Old. The best documentary on the war I've ever seen. But this is an audio of the actual end of the war, the end of the firing of the artillery and small arms. A sinister sound.

Eerie recording reveals moment the guns fell silent at the end of WWI

On the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, the guns fell silent.

It brought an end to four years of war which crippled Europe, leaving 17 million dead including 888,246 British or Colonial servicemen...

...The artillery activity it illustrates was recorded on the American front near the River Moselle, one minute before and one minute after the war ended.

Strangely, audio couldn’t be recorded at the time so the Allies created them using ‘sound ranging, which recorded the intensity of noise to photographic film (a seismograph for earthquakes is a good comparison).

This visual record allowed the Imperial War Museum to turn the moment back into audio to give an impression of what the moment was like...

The last World War I veteran died in 2012, and we are loosing over 300 World War II veterans a day. I'm 54, I have no doubt I will see the end of the World War II generation, and the Korea War, before my time has passed.

May they Rest In Peace.