After celebrating his 100th birthday earlier this month, the World War II veteran will march and remember a life of adventure | tonyowright
John Wilkinson still remembers the grin on a Japanese pilot’s face as he roared by, a few metres above the road south of Darwin, in his Zero fighter.
“But he didn’t shoot. He just veered off, waved and flew away. He was wearing one of those leather caps, and I can still see the grin on his face as he went by.John Wilkinson, aged just 20, had already survived the February 1942 Japanese bombing of Darwin.He was part of a six-man military section posted to protect Darwin’s airfield, but he and another man had only a rifle and four rounds of ammunition each. The other four men were armed with sharpened steel pickets.
“I enjoyed it very much, and when the war finished we were given the job of looking after the Japanese prisoners who had surrendered,” he said.Wilkinson survived the war without being wounded and was destined to live so long that this weekend he will march in the Anzac Day parade in Sydney. “Wilko” lives these days in the village of Coleambally, in the NSW Riverina, where for many years he and his late wife, Joan, farmed rice.
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