Centenarian with picture perfect memory recalls last days of war

On the eve of his 100th birthday, Vern Roberts’ picture perfect memory is a gift that offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes at the end of WWII.

Victorian great-grandfather Vern Roberts is a national treasure; one of the last men standing to have been a witness to the end of World War II.

On the eve of his 100th birthday, his picture perfect memory offers a rare insight into what happened behind the scenes on September 9, 1945.

Mr Roberts recalls a steamy Sunday, balmy just like every other day he was stationed on the Indonesian island of Morotai.

Up close: Mr Roberts was not an official photographer but said he thought his images of the day were ‘not too bad’.

Hours earlier the then 20-year-old RAAF airframe fitter had been taking his turn on night shift guarding B-24 Liberator long range heavy bombers on the airstrip.

These were the mainstay of the American campaign in Western Europe and the bombing in the Pacific which started after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

“I heard shots, lots of gunfire, and thought the Japanese, they’ve landed or they’ve broken out of their compound which was on the island,” Mr Roberts said.

This image by Mr Roberts at Morotai shows the signing of the formal surrender of the Japanese army on September 9, 1945.

“It was almost midnight and the duty officer came and told us ‘it’s all right boys, the war’s over, Japan surrendered and it’s the boys firing off their .303 rifles down at the camp, that’s what you can hear’.

“After six years of war we were all so relieved that this was finally it and eventually we would be home.”

Soon 10,000 Australian and Allied troops lined the airstrip to witness the Second Japanese Army formally sign the surrender document for the South West Pacific.

“Then we all dispersed back to our camp,” Mr Roberts said.

Mr Roberts captured these images at Morotai on September 9, 1945 on a Soho Myna folding camera, gifted to him by his mother.

He wasn’t an official photographer, just a young bloke from Footscray who happened to have in his hands a Soho Myna folding camera and the confidence to make his way to the front of the crowd.

A gift from his mum, Elsie, the camera allowed him to capture the moment Japanese naval officers Toru Oyama and Minoru Toyama signed the document that was accepted by the Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces, General Sir Thomas Blamey.

Mr Roberts wouldn’t know just how good the photographs were, or how close he got, until he had the film developed on his return home.

“I just remember I had the camera, and I thought, well I’m going to get in there, too, and when I got them all developed, I thought, they’re not too bad.

“I must have got in pretty close because I’ve got a number of photos almost as good as the (war correspondents) with my little camera.”

Mr Roberts reunited with the camera he used to photograph the signing of the surrender by the Japanese ending WWII. Picture: David Caird

He was on the island to help service the B-24 Liberators that were flying bombing missions across the South West Pacific. There was nothing fancy about them, the Liberators were more dependable than pretty, but Mr Roberts grew to love them.

His treasured collection of black and white images from that day have stood the test of time and, along with his camera, take pride of place in the B-24 Liberator Restoration Museum at Werribee in Melbourne’s southwest.

It is here that the last Liberator in Australia has been lovingly restored over more than three decades by a dedicated group of volunteers that includes Mr Roberts.

It is a plane of parts. More than one million rivets replaced; every nook and cranny refurbished. It has a once-battered fuselage from Moe, a new wing, Japanese bullet holes and all, from a Liberator shot down in Papua New Guinea during WW11.

Then it took an army, literally, to recover the wing and bring it to Werribee in 1991 and from there thousands of hours of hard work to restore her, funded thanks to a special B-24 Fund. Now complete, she will soon move to a bespoke new hangar just up the road.

For more than 30 years Mr Roberts has been part of a crew of volunteers helping to restore the last B-24 Liberator aircraft in Australia in a hangar in Werribee. Picture: David Caird

The volunteers are passionate about the aircraft, but also the men who flew them.

“The aircrews did it tough,” Mr Roberts said. “If they didn’t get shot down, they were lucky. These planes were not built for comfort; no insulation and the noise must have been incredible.

“And when the bomb bay doors were open, the only thing between you and the ground was this narrow little way between the front and the rear of the aircraft.”

It would be Christmas 1945 by the time Mr Roberts finally arrived home. The journey was on a trusty Liberator via Darwin in the Northern Territory and Tocumwal in NSW and then finally to Laverton on the outskirts of Melbourne’s west.

“A Liberator brought me home.”

Volunteers David Miller and Vern Roberts working on the B24 Liberator at Werribee.

He was then demobilised, the term used for discharging almost 600,000 men and women from the military after WWII.

“I had a week off and then went back and finished my apprenticeship as a printer.”

On Friday 25 October Mr Roberts turns 100. He plans to celebrate with family and friends including his two children Brian and Glenda, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and his lifelong mate and next door neighbour Wal Hopkins who also celebrated his 100th birthday earlier this year.

His secrets to a long and healthy life?

Family and friends, he says, are life’s best gift, but his daughter Glenda McLuckie says his incredible memory is also something to be treasured. “It is like a living history,” she said.

As for presents for the big day, well, he wouldn’t mind a Grand Final victory for his beloved Western Bulldogs, a team he has supported for a century.