Seventy-five years ago, Jim Moir thought he was going to die in the jungle after being shot through the hip with a Japanese rifle.

On Saturday, the 98-year-old and the other few remaining members of the 2/16th West Australian Infantry Battalion attended a service remembering a series of battles that happened 75 years ago on the infamous Kokoda Track.

With the Japanese Imperial Army closing in on the north of Australia, the thousands of young troops who went to Guinea in 1942 were seen by many as the nation's last line of defence.

Over the 16-week campaign, they battled near-impossible conditions to hold back the Japanese forces despite facing far superior numbers and weaponry.

Veteran Bill Grayden at a service at the State War Memorial in Kings Park. ( ABC News: James Carmody )

Bill Grayden, 97, a captain in the 2/16th Battalion said the message to take from Kokoda was of the character of Australia's serving men and women.

"Troops who enlist to serve Australia, they could be taken from the street anywhere, they are the equal, at least the equal, to the very ultimate in this world," he said.

"We didn't hate the Japanese, they were killing our people, but if they fell into our hands we would give them the same attention that we would show our own people.

"When the Japanese were injured, we would look after them to the same extent that we would look after our own."

'Don't give up Jim, you've lasted this long'

Mr Moir credited the strength of character of his fellow soldiers with getting him home alive after a bullet exploded through his hip.

"I thought I was dead and I remember saying to myself 'fancy dying in a shit place like this'," he said.

"I said to someone 'that's big enough hole to put an orange or an apple in'."

Mr Moir spent the next 25 days without painkillers, lying on a stretcher on the jungle floor.

Totally outnumbered in near-vertical terrain, Mr Moir and 10 other wounded were left in the jungle with two volunteers from the 2/27th Battalion until they could be rescued.

"When they stayed behind, who was to say that we'd ever come back again," he said.

A young Jim Moir in his uniform. ( Supplied: Jim Moir )

One day the group heard voices and readied themselves for what they thought would be a Japanese attack.

Mr Moir said he cried tears of happiness when he realised the voices belonged to Australian troops who had come back for them.

It took another five days for Mr Moir to be stretchered to hospital and he said this was the most painful part of the whole ordeal.

"As soon as they started to move me I was wracked with pain from my head to my feet and I thought 'I'm gone', I said to myself 'don't give up Jim, you've lasted this long, don't give up, keep fighting'."

Mr Moir said he was pleased to see that 75 years on, the sacrifices that were made were not lost on today's young people.

"If they had gotten to Port Moresby then that would have been open slather for the Japanese to bomb Australia," he said.

"What I love about it is these young people who follow us on, and they seem to be taking more interest than they did 20 or 30 years ago."

The Premier Mark McGowan was among hundreds who gathered at Kings Park in Perth on Saturday to pay their respects at the State War Memorial.

"Kokoda was the time when Australia was most threatened and so therefore it's one of the most important events in our nation's history and keeping the memory alive is important and men like Bill will always live on in our memories," he said.