WWII veteran remembers tough times as POW WORLD War II veteran George Robert Smith, who lied about his age to join the army in 1941, is glad Australians are still commemorating fallen soldiers of past wars. The 89-year-old still isn't sure exactly what motivated him to enlist as a young man. "I don't know, just to go overseas or something," he told AAP on Thursday, shortly after the Anzac Day national ceremony in Canberra. Everybody was doing it (and I thought) I might as well. Mr Smith was discharged less than a month after signing up when his superiors realised his true age. But that didn't stop him joining the war effort when he was in the same year allowed to legally re-enlist. He would later be taken prisoner in Singapore after his garrison surrendered in 1942. "We only had what we stood up in - shorts, shirts and boots," Mr Smith said, recalling his time as a prisoner of war. We had no blankets or anything like that. Mr Smith, who now lives near Perth, flew to Canberra to take part in this year's Anzac Day service. "It was good to see people still doing it and not forgetting all about it," he said. Earlier, around 17,000 people attended the national ceremony in the capital territory. Victoria Cross recipient Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith joined the march alongside three children whose fathers, Sergeant Matthew Locke and Sergeant Blaine Diddams, were killed in Afghanistan. Australian War Memorial director Brendan Nelson paid tribute to the courageous Australians and New Zealanders who fought in Gallipoli in April 1915. "They gave our young nation its sense of identity and place in the world, not by what they would do, but how they would do it," Dr Nelson said in his address to the ceremony.