Wendy Elliott's father left home for war when she was just six days old. He left before even having the chance to hold his newborn daughter in his arms, and never made it home.
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Her mother never recovered from the trauma, becoming an alcoholic and never speaking about her late husband. Ms Elliott said she later grew to understand the "impacts of war".
She wouldn't talk about him with me either.
- Wendy Elliott
"It had quite an impact on me, but I didn't realise at the time," Ms Elliott told onlookers during Monday's Remembrance Day service at the newly renovated memorial at Tathra overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
"War can affect people in many ways.
"I never knew my grandfather either. He died from injuries he received at Gallipoli one year after the war."
Remembrance Day was inaugurated by King George V in 1919 to mark the end of the First World War on November 11, 101 years ago. For many like Ms Elliott, who wears her relatives medals on her chest, it's a day to think about all of the men, women and children who don't return home from war.
In almost fortuitous circumstances, Ms Elliott's father's voice was immortalised on an old cardboard record. The recording was made while troops were in New York, headed to an unknown fate on the European frontline.
"It's the only time I've ever heard his voice. I was an adult by then and it was a bit tingly, and proved to me he did exist and have a life," the 76-year-old said.
"Him not being there was all I knew. It was sad, my mum never really got over it. She wouldn't talk about him with me either."
He was tragically shot down by German fighter planes over Holland during the Second World War, clipping a farm house with his wings before crashing into a forest near Oirschot.
His body was buried in a communal grave in the forest, and she once visited with the town's mayor as she sought to know as much as she could about a man she never met.
"I went back 50 years after his death and you could still see in the forest where he crashed into the trees," she said.
"I also really got to find out about my father when I saw his possessions that were sent back, like tennis rackets and cigarette lighters, so he was a smoker."
War left her grandmother a widow at 29 and her mother a widow at just 27. Luckily her husband returned home from the Vietnam War after being stationed in the Philippines.
She said she decided to tell her story, as it was a "good message for the kids", who she said "may not value having their fathers around".
Resident John Seckold said he had recently returned from the scene of The Battle of the Somme, after searching for the location where his father was shot and injured on November 9, 1917.
Just months before he died, he took Mr Seckold aside, lifted his shirt,showing him the three scars on his shoulder caused by bullets. He had come within inches of death.
"There was a little bit of emotion about it," Mr Seckold said.
Tathra RSL sub-branch member Allen Collins said it was important for school children to attend the memorial as the town's elders are "fading away", with three club members passing away over the last 12 months.
He said his first Remembrance Day in 1971 was attended by one man and his dogs.
"There were more dogs than men," he said.