Credited with "saving the Pacific," the Australian Coastwatchers operated behind enemy lines with Pacific island soldiers to spy on the Japanese Imperial forces.
Dozens of Coastwatchers were captured and killed, but they had many successes, including saving the life of a future president of the United States.
Still fresh in former commando Jim Burrowes's memory are the codes that saved thousands of lives during the Second World War's Pacific theatre.
"Sixty bombers headed your way ... Two hours, or what have you ...10,000 feet ... Dah, dit, dit, dit, dit, dit, dah, dah, dit, and so forth ... I still know my morse code."
A member of the Allied Intelligence special M unit, Mr Burrowes kept a rare memento from the jungle, of a top-secret Australian mission to spy on the Japanese.
"This is the morse key that I used during the war. I pinched it and brought it home."
Ahead of the Japanese invasions in the Pacific in 1942, the Australian navy trained civilians in Melanesia as radio operators.
Commandos like Jim Burrowes were sent to reinforce and relieve them behind enemy lines.
A Pacific war historian, Dr Martin Hadlow, has researched their mission.
"They have been forgotten. And not just the expatriate Coastwatchers, but, also, particularly the local people who assisted them and worked with them as scouts and as coastwatchers themselves."
He says the unit was disbanded before the end of the war as the front line moved away from Australia.
"This was a unique operation and provided invaluable strategic and tactical information, that what was happening right now be flashed back to the US naval forces and the US marines on Guadalcanal, and they would know, they would have a couple of hours' warning, that aircraft were coming over and were going to bomb them. This was vitally important."
Jim Burrowes is one of the very last, and he is committing his memories to a website before the secrets of the war are lost.
From their jungle hideouts, the Coastwatchers sent coded messages to United States general Douglas MacArthur at Allied headquarters in Brisbane.
The advanced warning resulted in the Japanese advance in the Pacific being halted at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
Jim Burrowes hid in the mountains above the main Japanese base at Rabaul, in Papua New Guinea, and, he says, survived only because of islander scouts.
"I can't speak highly enough of the native troops we had. Without them, there wouldn't have been any Coastwatchers."
The Coastwatchers' role was also to rescue downed airmen and sailors.
In the Solomon Islands, the islander scouts famously saved future US president John F Kennedy when the Japanese sank his patrol boat.
Martin Hadlow says their role was later immortalised by the US navy commander of the South Pacific area during the war.
"Indeed, Admiral Bull Halsey saw the uniqueness of this entire operation, the value of the operation to Allied forces, when he said that the Coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal and Guadalcanal saved the Pacific."
Of about 400 Coastwatchers, more than 30 were captured, tortured and killed.
Jim Burrowes says he hopes, when he is gone, they will not be forgotten.
