Hilton "Tiger" Bourke didn't want to go to war and leave his young family behind in Canberra. But he, like a generation of Australians, felt it was his duty to do so.
After deploying to New Guinea, Bourke tragically never saw Canberra again, but his family is determined the capital will never forget one of its biggest characters.
Saturday marks the 75th anniversary of Japan's surrender in WWII, a critical day which would soon after officially bring an end to a war which had ravaged much of the world's population.
One million Australians served in WWII, and to mark the anniversary ancestry.com.au is providing free access to war records until Sunday so Australians can find their "one in a million".
Bourke's granddaughter Fiona Robinson has had to rely on historical records to learn about her grandfather. Luckily for her, his exploits are extensively chronicled.
One of the early Canberrans, a young Bourke moved here with his family in 1911 to help build the new capital.
His family originally lived in tents near the Cotter Dam which his father, a miner, was working on.
Hilton Bourke owned one of the first cars in Canberra, a Model A Ford, and was a legendary rugby league player. He was considered to be picked in a squad to tour England.
The pages of this very paper recall a match in which Bourke, displaying the toughness which earned him the nickname Tiger, cleaved his head open, refused to leave the field and went on to score a try to a standing ovation.
In 1942 Bourke made the difficult decision to sign up with the army after it began accepting married men, and he served within the First Australian Infantry Troops Workshop as a blacksmith creating and repairing items crucial to the war effort.
"I didn't really understand the importance of him until I spoke to his brother," Ms Robinson said.
"He said that people who could actually do those jobs kept the war going."
In 1944 Bourke was sent to New Britain, and after years of breathing in harsh chemicals fell terminally ill while deployed.
He was returned to Australia, but never made it beyond Sydney.
Sadly his dying wish, to have one more beer at the Kingston Hotel, remained unfulfilled.
There remains sadness within the family that Bourke never made it back to Canberra.
He was laid to rest in the military graves at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney as the army refused to grant the family's request for his return home.
Despite leaving his family far too soon, Ms Robinson said they remain immensely proud of the sacrifice he made to serve his country.
"He was in his mid-30s, he didn't have to go to war," she said.
"But he still put his hand up. He didn't really want to go, but he had to do his duty.
"I study a lot of history and there's that saying, 'Our glorious dead'.
"That's really how I feel about him."
