Image: ABC

94-year-old veteran Jim Kerr says he never regretted joining the army at the age of 15 and going off to fight in the Second World War.

This week marks 80 years since Australia joined World War II.

On September 3, 1939, Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced to the nation that Australia would join Great Britain in fighting the Germans.

Jim Kerr was just 15-years-old when he enlisted to fight in the Second World War and about 17-years-old when he was taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese.

He tells Ben Fordham is he had to lie about his age when his parents said he couldn’t go to war.

“My army papers, according to them, I’ll be 100 years of age next February.”

Mr Kerr has never regretted signing up but he says mateship helped get him through.

“The only way to survive you needed a mate. You shared everything with your mate.”

Click PLAY to hear his remarkable story