Time marches on for our World War II heroes | The Australian IN nursing homes and darkened bedrooms across the nation, the generation of soldiers who fought to save Australia during World War II is suddenly dying in record numbers. During the course of today alone, 44 veterans of that terrible conflict are likely to draw their last breath. They will die quietly and without fanfare in a country which, thanks to them, has the luxury these days of being more worried about the economy than about war. In this week leading up to Anzac Day , the death toll among World War II veterans is likely to top 300, or 33 infantry platoons. Brigadier Keith Rossi, who at 87 is the last WWII veteran in Australia to hold a senior formal job in the Returned and Services League, said: "I have lost four of my mates in the past few weeks. You get a bit more lonely and a bit more emotional as you go to their funerals; it's hard not to cry. "But then again, we can't grizzle too much because it's our time to go." Brigadier Rossi rose from the rank of private, serving in the Middle East and the Pacific during WWII, then in Vietnam. He remains on the state executive of the Victorian RSL. Figures provided exclusively to The Australian by the Department of Veterans Affairs reveal for the first time the extent and speed of the passing of the WWII generation - a loss that will transform the nature of Anzac Day. They show that in the past 12 months, 16,000 - or 12.5 per cent - of WWII veterans died, leaving only 112,600 alive. This compares with almost 200,000 survivors five years ago. For the first time, the surviving veterans of some of Australia's most iconic military campaigns - the men who turned back the Japanese tide on the Kokoda Track; the rats who saved Tobruk; the Diggers who stopped Rommel's tanks at El Alamein; and the gunners who defended Darwin - will be numbered in the hundreds rather than in thousands. Within a year, every WWII veteran in the country will be able to fit into the MCG, with room to spare. The numbers of former prisoners of war are also crumbling. There are only 880 former POWs of the Japanese left, 530 POWs who were held in Europe and 12 held during the Korean War. Cyril Gilbert, a former POW at Changi and on the Burma Railway and who was recently given the title of honorary life vice-president of the Queensland RSL, said: "We lost 281 POWs in the last 12 months alone." Even the youngest WWII veteran is now in the mid-80s. Within five years, their numbers will have more than halved to 48,600, less than the combined number of veterans from the Vietnam and Korean wars. RSL national president Bill Crews said: "We are witnessing a very sad and very significant change in our history. "We are losing the generation to whom we all owe so much." Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin said: "We owe them not only for their service and sacrifice but also a promise to always remember what they gave for their country, and in our name." The current death rate of 16,000 a year for WWII veterans and rising is three times the death rate experienced by Australians in WWII itself. By contrast, only 700 Vietnam veterans died in the past year, an average of two a day, leaving the total number of Vietnam survivors at 49,000. Mr Crews said the age of the WWII generation meant it no longer had a direct influence over the RSL. "It is always sad, but life is like that," he said. "This was the generation which grew up in depression, then fought through a six-year global conflict and then had to build much of Australia. "Their decline in numbers places an even greater onus on younger Australians to understand what they went through. While they are still alive, oral history is important to learn what they went through. "Many of the WWII veterans are now more willing to speak about their experience than they once were, and we need to take advantage of that."
Never have truer words been spoken. With the focus on the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI recently, I've felt the ageing veterans of WWII have been somewhat ignored by historians and the like. A gross overstatement perhaps but that's how I've seen it.
