Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

I was eighteen years old and working as a salesman in Collins Street when I signed up. The form wasn't the standard one — it said "Special Forces," right at the top. I knew what I was volunteering for, more or less. Sixteen days after my birthday, on Anzac Day 1944, I was a soldier.
The year that followed was training. Royal Park in Melbourne. Cowra in New South Wales. Bonegilla on the Murray. I learned stores and logistics — how to handle the equipment that keeps men alive in the field. In May 1945 I was officially transferred to Z Special Unit. Two weeks later I was overseas.
I was a Lecture Storeman. My job was to make sure the operatives in the field had what they needed — radios, supplies, the stores that kept men alive behind Japanese lines in Borneo. I also taught others how to handle that equipment. I was there for the end of the Borneo campaign and for the weeks after Japan surrendered, when we were working to find and reach Allied prisoners still held in camps across the island.
I came home in September 1945. Six months later I was admitted to hospital. The Army called it neurosis. I was discharged on medical grounds in August 1946. I was twenty years old.
For the next thirty years, I wasn't permitted to speak about any of it.
My name is Keith Campbell Weir. Service number VX94769. I served with Z Special Unit in the final months of the Second World War. This is my record.