Fred Power, 104, survived active service in Malaya and New Guinea

And he would know. The 104-year-old veteran survived active service in World War II.

With the 75^th anniversary of Victory in the Pacific Day coming up, Mr Powers is one of the few remaining people who can say they were there.

Born in 1916 in Gunning, an historic town just north of Canberra, Mr Power grew up on a dairy farm.

When his two older brothers signed up for military service, Mr Power wasn't far behind them.

He signed up in 1940, and by 1941 was on active duty in Malaya.

His battalion was part of the battle of Muar, one of two Australian battalions trapped at Parit Sulong bridge with an Indian regiment.

Of the 4000 men, only 900 survived.

"We'd gone straight into a trap and had no more ammunition and no air force," Mr Power recalls.

"We were held up at a bridge over Simpang River.

"We hadn't been able to get our wounded out - we had 40 at least.

"The Lieutenant Colonel took the white flag down to the Japs to ask if they'd let the wounded through and they said they wouldn't, unless everyone surrendered.

"One of the wounded said very loudly what they thought the Japs could do."

Lieutenant Colonel Anderson said the group had two choices - try to create a diversion and break through, or die where they were.

A group of men volunteered to make an attack as a diversion.

"Jimmy Smith was in charge, Sergeant Smith," Mr Power said.

"All of them came up at once.

"The Japs must have had 10 or more machine guns, and the noise they made was terrific.

"Those blokes were dead in about a minute, the lot of them."

The remaining men broke into small groups and retreated into the jungle.

They made their way to a bend in the river, with the aim of swimming across and making their way through the jungle to headquarters at Yong Peng.

"Just before our little group went in the Japs machine-gunned up and down the river, so they must have seen some of us getting across, but a few of us made it through," he said.

"We started making our way up the mountain.

"Our doctor was with us and about half way up the mountain he said he couldn't go any further.

"So we cut down some saplings, made a stretcher, tied the crossbars with our shoelaces and put him on that."

They came upon the road to Yong Peng about 3pm, and were relieved to see some friendly trucks in the bushes.

"They thought we were a pretty lousy looking lot, which we were - we hadn't had a wash or a shave or any food for a week," Mr Power said.

"They boiled up some potatoes and bully beef and took us back to Yong Peng.

"We stayed there for a week, then it was back to the island; that was where I got wounded and sent to hospital."

As Mr Power lay in his hospital bed, he could hear enemy fire approaching.

He and another patient, Harry, decided to make a break for the wharf while they still could.

They were caught by a military police officer trying to buy water.

"He asked us what we were doing and we said we were clearing out because there was nothing we could do - Harry had malaria and I was covered in patches [from shrapnel injuries]," he said.

"The officer said that was pretty obvious and rowed us out to the hospital ship in the bay."

That was where Mr Power discovered the road between the hospital and the wharf had been closed.

There would be no more evacuees.

About ten minutes after they got on the ship, the wharf was bombed heavily.

The ship pulled out and made its way towards Jakarta, where the patients would be transferred on to Sri Lanka.

A twist of fate let Mr Power's brothers know he was safe.

As he lay on a verandah hospital bed in Sri Lanka, wounded and wracked with dysentery, Mr Power saw a familiar face walk by.

"I looked up and my eldest brother was walking past - I couldn't mistake him," Mr Power said.

"They had leave off the boat and just as he was about to go someone told him the wounded had been brought in from Singapore.

"He asked where they were and got a taxi straight there."

More than 70 years later, Mr Power is still emotional as he remembers the unexpected moment of brotherly love.

"I didn't have anything with me in the hospital but my underpants, so the next day he brought me out a razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, a couple of face washers, some handkerchiefs and lollies," he said.

"I was living in the land of luxury then."

Unbeknown to them, both of Mr Power's brothers ended up in the same convoy of ships.

"He thought he saw John walking along the deck of the other ship and yelled out to him - and it was," he said.

"He told him 'I've seen Fred, and he's okay'."

After three months in hospital Mr Power was sent home, and a month after that his parents found out he was alive.

Shortly after that, he was deemed fit enough for service and packed off to New Guinea.

"That was a lot easier - we were bombed a few times, but when they start to bomb you, you switch the lights off," he said.

"When you're in total darkness they can't see and the bombs just drop anywhere."

New Guinea was also where he met his future wife's brother, Herb.

Mr Power finished the war on an island off the coast of Borneo, engaged in a continuing stalemate with Japanese troops.

His death-defying exploits continued - in one incident, a torpedo passed directly under the front of the ship he was on, while another torpedo just missed a nearby destroyer.

Returned soldiers received deferred pay - sixpence a day for time spent in Australia, a shilling a day while overseas - and he and Herb purchased a small shop.

It was while they were cleaning it up he met his future wife Moira.

"I remember she had her hair up in curlers, and she was wearing a greenish-looking dress," he said.

"We were carting out rubbish, so the first trip she had with me was in the panel van, carting rubbish to the tip - but she wouldn't get off.

"We just sort of clicked when we first met and that was it."

The pair wed in 1948.

Moira - always talented with a needle - made her own wedding dress.

The couple went on to have two sons, a grandson and a granddaughter.

Mr Power said they retired from having children after their two sons so there was never an odd one out.

Apart from a boat break-down in crocodile-infested waters, Mr Power managed to keep himself relatively well out of trouble on the trip.

It was on their way home in 1983 they stopped in to visit a friend at Sussex Inlet, on the South Coast of NSW, and fell in love with the area.

Although Moira died in 2018, Fred continues to be an active member of the community and enjoyed his 104^th birthday celebrations in February.