Two of Britain's last five surviving World War I veterans have met the Queen at a Buckingham Palace garden party.
Henry Allingham, of East Sussex, who at 111 is the UK's oldest man, was joined by Bill Stone, 106, from Berkshire.
Two great-great grandsons of soldiers who died in the World War I Battle of Passchendaele also greeted the Queen.
Rupert Forrester, 18, from Ireland, and Jacob Pratt, 13, from Leeds, will attend a service in Belgium on Thursday to mark the battle's 90th anniversary.
Mr Allingham, of Ovingdean, near Brighton, is a Royal Navy veteran who saw action at Ypres and the Somme.
'Great honour'
He said he was representing all the servicemen who sacrificed their lives for their country in the war.
"I didn't come here for my life. I came here because of those men who gave their lives.
"I want people to know how much we owe them. They gave everything."
He added that he had met the Queen several times before Tuesday's event.
"It's a great honour. She's a lovely lady."
Mr Stone, who lives near Wokingham, is the last known ex-serviceman, living in Britain, to have served in both world wars.
He said that he put his long, happy life down to "clean living, a contented mind and faith in the Lord".
"My motto is to keep going," he said.
Thursday's commemoration of the Battle of Passchendaele, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of men, will be attended by the Queen.
'Brave man'
Jacob Pratt, from Otley, who is the great-great grandson of Walter Wardman, will give a reading at the ceremony in Ypres.
After meeting the Queen on Tuesday, he said he was proud of his relative, who was in the Queen's Light Infantry and died leaving a wife and two children.
"It's quite a privilege to have a brave man in this family that fought in this war to help this country and other countries."
Rupert Forrester, from Easkey, in Ireland, is the descendent of Lt Col Harry Moorhouse, who was killed on the same day and within an hour of his son, Capt Ronald Moorhouse, in 1917.
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