For World War II veteran Len Seyffer Remembrance Day is always a special occasion and never more so than on Sunday which marked the centenary of the end of the Great War.
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At 95 Mr Seyffer is our only surviving Light Horseman, serving in New Guinea and New Britain and finally Rabaul before coming home.
Remembrance day is always special, he said.
It was great to see the turn out here today [referring to the ceremony at the Nowra cenotaph, which included Shoalhaven City Pipes and Drums joining in a world-wide event, a mass playing of the retreat march, Pipe Major William Robbs composition When the Battles Oer].
When I was a kid, I remember the First World War blokes coming back and seeing them on Remembrance Day.
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They used to gather here at the cenotaph at half past seven each Remembrance Day and march down to the hall for their beer and prawns. That went on for years.
I remember the old fellas - Ulric Walsh and Jim Beileiter and the like - they were great old blokes.
I suppose I had a respect for them and felt for them.
I remember the First World War blokes coming back and seeing them on Remembrance Day. I didnt know of course what it really meant until I went myself. After youve been it means more - I had a few blokes left over there.
- Nowras only surviving Light Horseman, Len Seyffer.
I didnt know of course what it really meant until I went myself.
After you've been it means more - I had a few blokes left over there.
Mr Seyffer said he was among around 50 young local men who joined up as Light Horsemen.
We all joined up, he said. All the lads here more or less joined up together.
Some went off to other arms of the defence force - the likes of Tom Webster and Jim Rainsford.
The Light Horse crowd was approximately 50 blokes and went away in December 41 and stayed away.
They broke us up of course, they didnt take us as a group but we referred to ourselves as Light Horsemen.
We did go with the intention of being Light Horsemen.
He said after returning home he learnt just how lucky he was to survive.
Jim Morton, the brother of at the time local solicitor Mark Morton, was in intelligence and he told me after the war we were very lucky as there was 110,000 Japs at Rabaul and an understrengthed brigade of us, he said.
Apparently the Japanese general was looking for the 34th Australian Division, which was probably a boathouse or engineering shop or something like that, before he attacked. Fortunately he didnt find the non-existent division or he would of gone for us for sure.