Neil Johnson was just 17 when Australia went to war in 1939, but that wasn't about to stop the young lad from Woolsthorpe putting his hand up to help the cause.
Sadly, the decorated young soldier never returned to his parents' family farm. Two days before his 23rd birthday, he was killed fighting the Japanese in New Guinea in the closing months of the war on April 21, 1945.
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His story and those of more than a dozen other Western District men who served in the armed forces will be told at an Anzac Day Warrnambool Cemetery tour on Monday.
The Memorials to Veterans tour will be conducted by the Warrnambool RSL and the Warrnambool Family History Group.
The RSL's Doug Heazlewood will lead the tour which includes the graves and family memorials of soldiers who fought at Gallipoli and the Western Front in World War 1. "We will also visit the graves of the only two Warrnambool soldiers who were killed in action overseas and whose remains were returned to Australia for burial," Mr Heazlewood said, referring to the final resting place of Vietnam veterans Privates William Carroll and Graeme Warburton. A Vietnam veteran and keen military historian, Mr Heazlewood said it was important to personalize the names on the headstones.
"I try to make every one of them of interest and to make them come alive."
In the case of Neil Johnson, Mr Heazlewood has a personal connection of his own, discovering during his research that he was a second cousin. Born in 1922 in the years following what was meant to be the war to end all wars, Neil left the Woolsthorpe family farm and made his way to Melbourne in the weeks after Prime Minister Robert Menzies' September 3 announcement that the nation was once again at war.
By the end of the month, Neil was a serving member of the 6th Australian Infantry Division (2nd AIF), which later fought in the North African and Greek campaigns, on Crete and in Syria against the Germans, Italians and the Vichy French.
The young soldier was sent to Duntroon for officer training, but the prospect of four years away from the action didn't appeal to Neil who successfully lobbied to go back to his men.
A year or so later, the then Sergeant Johnson proved his mettle, awarded the Military Medal for his gallantry in New Guinea.
Fighting with the 3/7th Australian Infantry Battalion against the Japanese in June 1943, his citation was for "outstanding patrol work and aggressiveness at Lababia Ridge".
. The tour starts at the cemetery rotunda at 9am.
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