Inscribed on the grave of Private Edward Emmanuel Robertson on a remote island in Borneo are the words: "One of Australia's brave - his duty nobly done - ever remembered".
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Private Robertson was a prisoner of war who died on May 23, 1945, just a few months before the Japanese surrender on August 15 the same year, which brought an end to the World War II. This month marks the 75th anniversary of what has become known as Victory in the Pacific Day, more commonly referred to as VP Day.
Private Robertson died aged 44, in the words of his great-grandson, Anna Bay's Jim Robertson, "a hero".
"My father, Graeme Robertson, and I backpacked through Borneo to Surrender Point in 2012 to retrace the footsteps of my great-grandfather who was captured and died as a POW in the war," said Mr Robertson, a cooper by trade who runs East Coast Timber Floors and More from his Taylors Beach warehouse.
"It was my grandfather's [Also a Jim Robertson] dying wish that dad and I go find the final resting place of his dad in Borneo.... one of the few named graves at the war cemetery at Labuan."
Reflecting on the 75th anniversary of VP Day, Mr Robertson told the Examiner that he had vivid memories of the tour he took with his dad that changed his life and made him better understand the sacrifices Australian and Allied soldiers made to halt the advancing Japanese.
"Fifteen flights in nine days, hopping from one island to another. We traced the notorious Sandakan death march and witnessed other landmarks until we found the grave of my great grandfather in a cemetery on the island of Labuan, where around 3,000 Australia, British and American soldiers rest," he said.
"It was a very emotional time, realising what those men went through and what they were forced to sacrifice. We hiked along the train line that the prisoners built and saw remnants of the cages [1mx1m bamboo boxes] they were kept in, where ultimately many were left to die.
"We saw the dense jungles and experienced the hot humid conditions ... to think what so many Australians had to live through is quite overwhelming. I was glad to see this from my own perspective but also to fulfill a promise to my granddad who never got the opportunity to see his father's final resting place."
Mr Robertson said that experience had provided him with a new respect for the Australian war diggers.
"For me it was life changing experience and I was glad I could pay my respects. I was glad that my great grandfather's grave was marked, there are so many other unmarked graves."
Having joined the Army in 1940 at age 40, Private Robertson was shipped to Borneo on the Kanimbla.
"Oddly enough, on duty on that tour in 1942 was my granddad, who had enlisted to serve in the Navy," he said. "It was likely the last time they would see each other."
The Kanimbla, wrote Sgt S. Kelen in 1948, went on to sail across the Pacific and made her first D-Day landing in Dutch New Guinea on April 22, 1944.