When Alf Parbery signed up for the AIF he could not have imagined what the next five years held for him. He joined the signals and was sent to 16 Brigade - part of the 6th Australian Infantry Division.

In the middle East the division fought at Bardia and Tobruk, when the British allied army took those coastal fortresses from the Italians.

The next campaign for Alf and his J Section mates was Greece, that ill-conceived campaign that resulted in the retreat to Crete. Alf was lucky to miss the fighting there and was taken to Egypt and then the Syrian campaign.

With Japan in the war, Alf returned home via a long stay in Ceylon, then to the Kokoda campaign and the subsequent  fighting at Sanananda.