Army honours largest ever First Nations battalion in 80-year WWII commemoration

Awati Mau, 97, is one of only two surviving members of the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion. (Supplied: Australian Defence Force)

In the early 1940s, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people could not enter a pub, they were not paid a fair wage, and they were not counted in the Commonwealth census.

But when war was on the doorstep to Australia's north, 880 Torres Strait Islanders signed up to protect the country against the Japanese forces, which had been gathering strength throughout the Pacific.