Also Served in U.S. Forces in Boxer Rebellion : Spanish-American War Vet Dies at 109

A 109-year-old veteran of the Spanish-American War and the Boxer Rebellion, believed to be the United States’ oldest serviceman, died Thursday at the age of 109, officials said.

Doctors at the Veterans Administration Medical Center here said Walter Pleate died of bronchial pneumonia.

“He just wouldn’t wake up,” said R. W. Mengel, a hospital spokesman. “The parts just normally gave out, like a car.”

Born on Oct. 10, 1876, in Bridesburg, now part of northeast Philadelphia, Pleate enlisted in the Army on Feb. 24, 1899, said Al Mann, a VA spokesman in New York City.

The United States, which declared war on Spain on April 25, 1898, had ended its fighting in Cuba by August of that year. But until early 1902, U.S. troops continued battling guerrillas in the Philippines, where Pleate was sent.

Pleate also fought in the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising in northern China started by a secret society angry at the intrusion of Western culture. Troops from the United States and seven other nations quelled the uprising, so named because of a mistake in translating the name of the group, “righteous-uniting band,” into “righteous-uniting fists.”

Pleate was discharged on Feb. 3, 1902, five months and a day before Congress officially declared an end to the Spanish-American War.

Pleate, who had no survivors, had spent the last 48 years in VA hospitals in Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

He became the nation’s oldest military veteran on Oct. 30, 1984, when Harry Chaloner died at Bay Pines VA Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Fla., at the age of 110.

With Pleate’s death, the oldest veteran becomes Christian F. Steinle of Los Angeles, who turned 107 on May 3 and is among 11 surviving veterans of the Spanish-American War.