Kokoda veteran George Palmer points to his figure in one of the most famous photographs of the Kokoda campaign, a photo of Australian soldiers trudging through the mud.
"I was the second one -- there. Now, of the six of us, there are two of us alive, myself and Arnold Forrest, who lives in Townsville."
The Federal Government says it will not hold an official commemoration in Papua New Guinea of the Second World War Kokoda campaign.
And now, 95 year-old George Palmer, of the 39th Battalion, is fighting another battle -- to preserve the memory of Kokoda.
"It is wrong. We must never forget ... never forget the sacrifices my mates made."
Kokoda was fought between July and November 1942 on what was then Australian soil.
It became the first Japanese defeat on land in the war.
Historian Patrick Lindsay is chairman of the Kokoda Track Foundation and says he has been asking the Government since last year when the PNG commemoration would be held.
"I'm dismayed, and I'm quite disgusted. It's the second time we've done this to these diggers. They didn't get the credit they deserved at the time and immediately after the war."
Kokoda tour operators say they have also been awaiting confirmation since last year and feel they will now have to take up the task.
Frank Taylor has been running tours to Papua New Guinea for three decades and is head of the Kokoda Tour Operators Association.
"Well, I was disappointed. I did feel that it is an important event. If the historical linkages are beginning to fail a little, as perhaps you could argue being demonstrated by no offshore (observance), then it looks like a lot of that's going to pass onto the operators."
More than 600 Australians died in the Kokoda campaign.
And there were thousands more casualties in the brutal jungle warfare and on the beachheads, including an untold number of Papua New Guineans.
The 75th anniversary is expected to be the last time the few surviving veterans will see a major commemoration.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull laid a wreath at the Bomana War Cemetery outside the PNG capital, Port Moresby.
"Seventy-five years ago, Australia was unprepared to defend itself. All of our best soldiers, all of our trained soldiers, were abroad. Militiamen -- reservists, in effect -- were sent here to defend the Kokoda Track. These men, with very little training, rose to the occasion and kept Australia free, in the most horrific conditions."
The Governor-General is expected in Papua New Guinea for the only other Australian commemoration, on Anzac Day.
Patrick Lindsay, from the Kokoda Foundation, says that is a start.
"It's, I think, at least it's an honour, and the Prime Minister should do that. But the real people who should be involved in the commemoration are the surviving veterans and, of course, the families of the diggers who laid down their lives there."
The Department of Veterans Affairs has told SBS there will be what it calls "a national commemoration" in Canberra on November 2.
It says, in a statement, that, for the health and safety of the veterans, the decision was made to not continue veterans' missions after the 70th anniversary.
It says commemorations in Papua New Guinea are a matter for the "Papuan government."
Patrick Lindsay points out that, a hundred years later, the First World War Gallipoli campaign is still commemorated in Turkey, long after the last veteran has died.
"If we could do that, and we did, for the 75th anniversary of Gallipoli, why aren't we doing it for Kokoda?"
Papua New Guinea plans to mark Kokoda on November the 3rd for the so-called Fuzzy Wuzzies, the locals who served alongside the veterans like George Palmer.
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