In his 100th year, Reg Swanborough will take to the streets of Adelaide today for the Anzac Day march.
Mr Swanborough will be walking alone as one of the last remaining World War II veterans and the last member of the Arctic Convoy Veterans Association.
He joined the British Royal Navy on July 26, 1938, alongside 32 others.
"And, to the best of my knowledge, myself and two others came out alive from that lot," he said.
He was just 15 years old when he enlisted at the end of the Great Depression, at a time when there was little work or food.
And he was sent into battle at 18 years of age.
He worked in communications, sending signals to other ships using morse code and flags.
"Each flag had a meaning [and] you hoisted them in sequence," he said.
"I was pretty good, but that's a long time ago."
'Last man standing' from World War II unit
Like Mr Swanborough, Ron Bridgman will be the last World War II veteran from his unit participating in the Anzac Day march in the city today.
"The whole unit's gone but me. I'm the last man standing," he told ABC Radio Adelaide's David Bevan.
"Last year, there were two of us but he's passed away during the year, so now it's only me," he said.
"So that's a bit bewildering too.
"I'm a bit older than when I started."
Mr Bridgman enlisted on September 16, 1941, shortly before his 20th birthday and just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
"It was only a few weeks after that they were bombing Darwin," Mr Bridgman said.
He described being in Darwin at that time as a "bit bewildering" and "very hot".
"When the bombs started dropping, they were dropping everywhere … everything was so helpless," he said.
Mr Bridgman, who served in Darwin, New Guinea and Bougainville, was discharged in 1946 and said his experience had "changed him completely".
The 100-year-old has taken part in Anzac Day marches for years and said he especially enjoyed seeing the reaction of children waving as they passed.
"In them days, there was a thousand of us, now there's one — and that's me," he said.
The Adelaide Anzac Day march will start at 9:30am from the corner of North Terrace and Gawler Place, before heading down King William Road.
