Frans stayed in the Dutch Navy after the war ended and had postings in the West Indies and Indonesia. When he left the navy in 1948 he returned to Australia, moved to Bunbury, and began life with his Australian bride.

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Equally impressive as Frans’ history is how his son obtained it.

“What I did, I kept saying to him I want you to write your story down and when he got to his 70s he did start writing,” Leon said.

“He wrote two chapters but then he sort of got embarrassed about it and wouldn’t do it any more – I kept at him but I thought ‘oh he doesn’t want to do it’.”

Leon was unaware that his father continued recording his story in secret on audio tapes until he passed away at age 75 in 1998 – leaving his family an incredible history to explore.

“My mother at the time was volunteering at the cancer hospice at Hollywood Hospital, and he used to take her every Wednesday,” he said.

“She did that for 20 years and it appears that what he did every Wednesday -- he went home and he taped his life story.

“We’ve got the life story - all this on tape.”

Leon said neither he nor his mother knew about the tapes and found them in a drawer after Frans died.

He has shared the tapes with a Dutch historian and said now and then he sits down and listens to them.

Leon said he attends dawn services wearing his father’s medals to honour him.

“I come here every year for him,” he said.

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