The Australian hero whose death created one of the most confronting and iconic images to emerge from WWII is to be honoured at the Australian War Memorial on Wednesday to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of the war.
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Sergeant Leonard George Siffleet, a special forces soldier with M Special Unit, was a member of a group captured by hostile natives at Wantipi in New Guinea and handed over to the Japanese in early October 1943.
His story is to be told at the Last Post Commemorative Ceremony at 5pm.
The AWM is also holding a wreathlaying ceremony to honour those who served in the Battle for Australia in 1942 and 1943 at noon.
Sergeant Siffleet and his comrades were taken to a Japanese outpost at Malol where they were tortured and abused over several days.
They were then taken to Aitape where, at 3pm on October 24, Sergeant Siffleet and two other Australians were led onto the beach and beheaded.
A Japanese soldier snapped a picture of Siffleet, kneeling bound and blindfolded, at the instant when the sword began to descend.
A copy of the photograph was subsequently discovered on a captured Japanese soldier later in the war. It was widely circulated as part of attempts to highlight the war effort and what the Allies were fighting against.
Dr Karl James, a senior research officer at the AWM, said the image was as powerful today as it had been 70 years ago and bridged the gulf of time and space separating us from those events.
"It (the picture) is just so graphic," he said. "You know what happens next. It was found in Hollandia [New Guinea] on a captured Japanese soldier and there was confusion for years over who it actually depicted."
The image was at, various times, believed to be an American, then an Australian airman and, finally, identified as Sergeant Siffleet.
Dr James said that while the picture was incredibly confronting it was also extremely important.
"You look at this and you see that WWII was a war without mercy," he said. "War is an abomination and terrible things happen," he said.
"This was a war without quarter. The remarkable thing is that special forces soldiers such as Sergeant Siffleet volunteered for the work they did.
"They knew they would be operating well behind enemy lines, very much at the sharp end, and that if they were captured there was little or no chance of rescue."
Dr James said one of the reasons the image had proved so powerful at the time was that it focused on a European.
The Japanese were ruthless in their repression of local populations and thousands of civilians were slaughtered in a similar manner under their occupation of large parts of southern Asia.
He said that while nobody would ever know what Sergeant Siffleet was thinking he appeared to be composed, stoic and accepting.
"You can't help asking 'if it was me what would I do?' Would you have tried to run away? Thrown yourself to the ground or tried to resist?"
Sergeant Siffleet was born in Gunnedah on January 14, 1916. The third of seven children, he was engaged to be married when he joined up and wrote his last letter home in Christmas 1942.
He was only 27 years old when he was executed.
