They weren't in the mood for celebrating much of anything.

Which is perhaps a fitting memory, given the fact all of the Illawarra's commemoration events for the end of the war in the Pacific - VP Day - have been called off this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead, it will be a quieter commemoration, as the few surviving veterans turn their thoughts to the day they were freed from their service, before they doubtless turn to the darker aspects of their service, which will never be forgotten.

On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender. Nazi Germany had surrendered three months earlier. The war was over.

By then Australian forces were engaged in New Guinea, Bougainville, New Britain, Borneo, and the Philippines. More than 39,000 Australians had died; many were held as prisoners of war.

Wollongong's Mr Davis may be 95 but his memories of 75 years ago are sharp. He'll most likely mark the occasion with friends over lunch at the City Diggers or Wollongong Golf Club, where he lunches most days.

This week he told the Mercury he remembered hearing the news Japan had surrendered - and continued to get on with the job.

"We had their prisoners we had taken," he said.

A Wagga Wagga boy, he enlisted in the Air Force at age 19, trained as a pilot but was "scrubbed" and joined the ground staff. In May 1945 he and the 9^th Division's 26^th Brigade landed on the island of Tarakan, in Borneo, held by the Japanese.

"We were sent there ostensibly to get the Australian prisoners of war out of Sandakan [a town further north on Borneo]," Mr Davis said.

"We landed on Tarakan and there were 5000 [Japanese] Marines on the high ground. The 9^th Division went in at dawn, and we followed them in. I thought I'd been shot because there was blood everywhere. Or I'd torn it on the barge. Later there was a Digger boiling the billy and he told me 'we'd better go and get this bastard'. There was a sniper. That was my first experience under fire."

The losses were terrible. Out of about 3000 men, there were 600 casualties.

By August 1945 he was further south on Borneo, where the Australian forces fought their largest and last amphibious battle of the war, attempting to liberate the island.

"I was at Balikpapan when the war ended," he said.

"I was in hospital because I'd had amoebic dystentry, I'd gone from 12 stone down to nine. I was flown home [afterwards] and spent some time in hospital."

"We had been against some pretty rough treatment from the [Japanese], because they had the higher ground. That's why they got so many of our fellas.

"I had my 21^st birthday around when they ended. We just carried on as if the war was still on, because we had their prisoners we'd taken, and we were looking after.

"We were in the camp and one Japanese soldier said 'Wings' - the name of a magazine. I said 'where did you learn English?' He said 'Osaka University'. I talked to him a bit. I gave him some dog biscuits [rations] as we called them, because they were pretty hungry. They didn't have any food - that's how we got them all out. If they'd have been able to get reinforcements it might have been a different story on Tarakan and Balikpapan."

Mr Davis didn't mind too much that there wouldn't be any official activities for VP Day.

"It was relief. We were glad we were going home. I was flown home in a Catalina flying boat," he said.

"We didn't celebrate the end of the war much - except for playing two-up. I won some money.

"We soon forgot about the war. All I would say is that there will never be another one because it would be the end of the world, when they all drop atom bombs."