Mr Vick plane’s crashed in Germany during the war and he and other crew had to secretly find their way back to the Allies.

He was also involved in the devastating bombing of the German city of Dresden in the final months of the war, an attack that fuelled a long-running controversy over whether it had military merit.

Mrs Vick said she got an idea of how bad her late husband’s war experience was when their eldest son Stephen faced being conscripted when he turned 18.

Mr Vick had said he would be willing to be conscripted to spare his son the experience of war.

Mr Vick, who died last year, was a stalwart for many decades of the committee that has maintained the Ellerslie war memorial near Mortlake, where more than 70 people attended an Anzac Day ceremony on Tuesday.

Crowd numbers at the ceremony have built up in recent years, reversing an earlier decline.

The Vick family’s connection to Ellerslie war memorial remains with Mr Vick’s grandson, Nathan, serving on the memorial committee.

Mrs Vick said she and her husband had ended up being friends with a German World War Two serviceman and his family and she shared her husband’s doubts about war.

“Politicians should listen more to what the people are saying,” she said.