Second World War veterans Jack Bullen and David Hart recount their memories ahead of Remembrance Day

"I had a rifle, its number was 52517," Mr Bullen said.

"My army number was 45851. But don't ask me what I had for breakfast."

Enlisting in 1940, Mr Bullen served the full period of the war in combat units with three of the four army divisions: the 7th, 8th and 9th, remaining in the army until the end of the war.

Despite having one of the most demanding and extensive active service lives of any Second World War veteran, Mr Bullen often chooses to recall the quirky, more unusual times.

"I went to Puckapunyal for training, then I went to the Middle East," he said.

"We went over on SS Ile de France which was a luxury liner which hadn't been converted to a troop carrier and it was frightful.

"There were too many of us on board of course and the sewage had overflowed into the mess deck. We had to eat there and there was plenty of food because nobody wanted to eat it.

"Coming back on the Queen Mary wasn't much better. There were 300 of us and we had to setup bunks in the squash court."

Mr Bullen remembers being in a kayak when he heard news the war was over.

"I was in Borneo, going up the river," he said.

"We were doing a patrol up the river trying to find the enemy. Had they have found us, they would have just picked us off - we were right in the middle of the river."

Mr Bullen joked: "Thank goodness we had a radio and they told us the war was over, so we turned around and just went back".

While he narrowly avoided being one of the last casualties of the war, Mr Bullen said he had his fair share of close calls.

"We had a kamikaze come into us," he said.

"We were across a track through the jungle. We could hear the enemy trying to strike matches to light a fuse on his back. He came in, but everybody opened up on him.

"It's strange - after the war I met a fellow who wasn't in our unit, he was in the machine gun battalion. I told that story at a morning tea one day, he said 'I fired at him'. He was there that day in the jungle further down. We saw the same action."

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Mr Bullen recently attended a morning tea at RSL Warrnambool with friend and fellow veteran David Hart, ahead of Remembrance Day.

Mr Hart joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1943 and concluded his service when the war ended.

He completed his elementary flying training at Benalla and was promoted to the rank of sergeant before being sent to the Royal Canadian Air Force station in Claresholm, near Alberta, Canada as part of the British Commonwealth's air training plan.

There, he flew Avro Ansons, a British twin-engine training craft. David was eventually promoted to Pilot Officer and completed his training.

Mr Hart also recalled where he was when he heard the war had ended.

"We had finished our training and they shipped us to Vancouver and then on to Santiago in the US. Instead of going to Europe, we heard the war was over and we climbed aboard a US destroyer to return to Australia."

Well-travelled, Mr Hart said the best part of his time in service was seeing the world with his friend Doug from Kerang.

"Being on leave was the essential part of training," he joked.

"We were stationed in Saskatchewan and they gave us a couple weeks' leave so my mate and I said 'let's hit the train and head across Canada to see what it's like'.

"So we went to Winnipeg and went on to Toronto and we said 'that way is New York' and we found we could get over the border without any trouble, so we reckoned that was better than going to Quebec and went to New York for a week."

While the city was magnificent, Mr Hart admitted the two were a day late returning - though he would not divulge why.

Luckily, his sergeant was a friend and he was only warned to stay low and not do it again.

"Coming back was alright - there was no trouble then, the trouble came later."

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