Australian Hamish Russell's father fought on the Western Front in World War I but never told his son much about it.
The 79-year-old knows that there are not many people left who have such a close link to the conflict that ended 100 years ago.
He's come to France with his 44-year-old son Craig, both from Melbourne, to learn more about his father, Lieutenant William "Jock" Russell, and to commemorate the Centenary of Armistice.
"He never ever spoke about it and I never really asked him back then," Mr Russell told AAP on Monday.
"I do know that he always referred to it as 'Our War'."
Jock Russell was a Scotsman who enlisted at the age of 16 before serving in the Highland Division of the British Expeditionary Force two years later between September 1917 and January 1919.
The Highlanders were all nicknamed Jocks, which became a lifelong nickname for Mr Russell's father.
Mr Russell has a flask of his father's with the names Ypres, Somme, Cambrai, Lys, Marne and Scarpe scratched into it with a knife.
By checking official records he now knows his dad fought in all those battles, which were crucial in halting the German Spring Offensive in 1918 and turning the tide of the war.
His father won a Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty at the Battle of St Quentin on March 23 of that year.
Mr Russell understands his dad's post was overrun by Germans and instead of surrendering and being taken prisoner, he gathered his troops and led them on a dangerous but successful fight back to their own lines.
"I understand there was a lot of confusion and all soldiers all mixed up. It would have been very, very hairy," he said.
Lieutenant Russell moved to what was then British India in 1919 to join the Indian Army and was later given the option of going to either Australia or Canada, but not home to Scotland.
Mr Russell said the excuse given was that unemployment was too high in the UK, but that was bad treatment for "someone who had served in the war and was decorated."
So the Russell family moved to Australia in 1923, where Lieutenant Russell became a farmer for 16 years before Hamish was born in 1939, the year the Second World War broke out.
He enlisted again, this time with the Australian Army, but due to his advanced age he served in a training role.
When he came home Mr Russell was no longer a baby but a boy of five or six years old.
"I remember being quite upset because suddenly this strange man was ordering me around the house and as far as I was concerned only mum was allowed to do that," he said.
Looking back, Mr Russell wishes he had asked his father more about his life before he died in 1964.
But he's glad to finally be visiting the places where his father fought in northern France 100 years ago.
His son Craig, who himself served in the Australian Defence Force, is blown away by his grandfather's story.
"I think about what he did, I served as well, but it was very different back then. War was so much more difficult and they were so much tougher," he said.
"He's my grandad and he's won a Military Cross in World War I, I mean that's extraordinary."
Australian Associated Press
