Sir Roden Cutler VC - One In A Million video transcript

Onscreen text: 1 million Australians enlisted to serve in the Second World War. War Hero, Roden Cutler, was one of them.

He recalled the scenes of celebration in Melbourne the day the war ended...

Sir Roden Cutler VC:
I suppose it would have been about 10am. The people were out of the offices; they were walking down Collins Street; they were singing; they were clasping one another. And there was a Schweppes delivery truck trying to get through in Collins Street, and it was cut-off by the crowd. The crowd were pushing around it. It was loaded, of course with siphons of soft drink and all the rest of it. The driver’s assistant thought quickly, jumped out, jumped into the back of the truck, grabbed two soda siphons – one in each hand – and used them like machine guns and sprayed the crowd who fell back in time for the driver to turn around and escape.

And then a woman came up to me and she said: “Oh, thank you for winning the war”. I didn’t know I’d won the war, but I was very glad the war was over.

Onscreen text: Sir Roden Cutler VC, 1916 –2002

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