It’s the last question asked of the 95-year-old World War II veteran, Frank Koitka, in the presence of his daughter Jackie and Mareema watchdog Sophie.

Mr Koitka fought in the 2/9^th battalion of the 18^th brigade in Papua New Guinea during World War II, having fought in the battle for Buna, and in Sanananda. 

“I knew when I went that it was not going to be a picnic,” Mr Koitka said, more than 70 years after fighting against the Japanese in a foreign country. “It was frightening and I knew that we had to be extremely well alert to what was going on.”

Mr Koitka said no soldier wanted to accidentally wander off from the other troops. “That was the great fear. Of being left behind somewhere in the jungle.” 

Soldiers kept tobacco on them to be used to trade with the natives, to guide them if lost. A kind native carried Mr Koitka for days to a field hospital for treatment after he was injured. The Australian soldier had shrapnel in his chest and his back was broken. 

“They put me in a hospital tent with four Japs, I thought ‘Christ, if I get out of this I’d be bloody lucky. They were all smiling at me and I thought ‘which one of these is going to kill me?” 

He was discharged in 1943, suffering from malaria, and returned to live in Mount Isa. He took on a trade as a mechanic but he continued to suffer from fevers. It was not too long before he saw a photograph of his sister-in-law’s sister, Patricia Hayes. 

Mr Koitka knew he would marry Patricia. She eventually moved to Mount Isa and within half an hour of her being in town he casually visited her, still in his work clothes.

“I’m going to marry you,” he told her while she was having a cup of tea. 

“Over my dead body,” she retorted. 

They were married for 56 years and had five children together. Next to the house that he built in Marian Street was the car mechanics business he started with Harry Maison – K&M Motors.

Then in the 1970s Mr Koitka built a retirement boat 57 feet and three inches long, made of ferro-concrete, the reason being “it was nice and dry”. 

“It used to be a tourist attraction. They called to me, ‘Noah, when’s the rain starting?”  

Mr Koitka retired when he was 76-years-old.

“I just loved my work. I could not sit around much until I got sick. That put an end to me,” he said. 

He leaves Mount Isa with some reluctance. “Between you and I, it’s bloody terrible,” he said.

“Everything I ever wanted here, I got.

“There’s plenty of good friends and you never get stuck for a helping hand.”