Digger to overcome ‘virus obstacle’ on Anzac Day

World War II veteran Bruce Robertson will rise on Saturday at his Sydney retirement home and quietly mark ­another Anzac Day.

100-year-old WWII vertaran Bruce Robertson in his home on Friday. Picture: John Feder

Seventy-eight years after being the first to raise the alarm that Sydney was under attack by Japanese midget submarines, World War II veteran Bruce Robertson will rise on Saturday at his Sydney retirement home and quietly mark ­another Anzac Day.

It will be a far cry from being pushed in a wheelchair by his grandchildren, high-fiving those gathered along the parade route.

But despite the coronavirus crisis cancelling this year’s public ceremonies, the 100-year-old veteran is in no doubt about the enduring Anzac spirit. “It is always there,” he said. “It’s not lacking at all.

“The virus is an obstacle thwarting the commemorative march. But people are overcoming that and they are going to do things themselves and put poppies outside their house and wave flags at six in the morning.”

Mr Robertson’s plan for this Anzac Day will consist of saying the Ode, lowering the flag at the West Pennant Hills retirement village where he lives independently, and remembering those who served with a minute’s silence.

“Then we’ll raise the flag and pay reveille so the whole village can hear it, and those that can will light a candle,” he said.

Mr Robertson is confident Australians will still mark the day ­despite the restrictions keeping people from joining together.

“The circumstance because the virus has caused it to happen in a different way this year,” he said.

“We have to respect that, but we can still remember and this is one way to remember.”

For the past five years Mr Robertson has led his group of 30 squadron fighters in the march. He recalls asking his grandson to wheel him to the side of the march to a group of young boys eagerly watching as the Anzacs walked by.

“ I said to them ‘who would like a high-five?’ and they all wanted a high-five, and when I looked up 20m along everyone had their hand up for a high-five,” he said.

“I spent the whole march high-fiving all the way to the end.”

Mr Robertson, who lived through the Depression years, remembers not having shoes to wear to school, having patches in his trousers, and girls wearing pants made from old flour sacks. He describes those years and wartime as “madness” but prides Australians on their spirit to keep carrying on.