Service at Kokoda Memorial marks 75th Anniversary of end of WWII

The 75th Anniversary of Victory in the Pacific (VP) Day was commemorated at the Kokoda Track Memorial in Sydney on 15 August 2020 with an address by Emeritus Professor Robert Lusby AM, Retired Colonel and Chair of the National Centre for Veterans’ Healthcare at Concord Repatriation General Hospital. Professor Lusby concluded his remarks by quoting Fred Westphal from my 2016 documentary We had to Bloody Win: Kokoda Remembered by Fred Westphal:

Unfortunately for many servicemen, Victory in the Pacific was the beginning of long term mental and physical suffering. As Fred Westphal described it "it was not the war that destroyed us but the loss of friends - I was a nervous wreck for three years. We had been together for five years and in one day they are all gone, no one to talk to, the loss of friends, gone to all parts of Australia." We owe an eternal debt to all the brave men and women who served. LEST WE FORGET.