It was not just the men and women who served in Australia's defence forces that contributed to the war effort.
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This is something St Helen's Plains resident Gwen Fischer appreciates, having seen her uncle Alexander "Sandy" Mackenzie handmake camouflage nets from cotton during World War II.
Mr Mackenzie was born and grew up in Minyip, and was blinded by a farming accident when he was 16. Mrs Fischer, now 89, remembered visiting his house in Balwyn, Melbourne.
"I can remember him making his nets at his house, though I was only a little girl," she said.
"Aunty Dulcie used to shove them all into the car and take them into the city where the Country Women's Association headquarters were at the time."
During World War Two, CWA volunteers made an estimated 150,000 nets.
The Australian War Memorial journal notes camouflage nets were used by Australian troops in both world wars, and covered in abstract patterns matching the colour of their surroundings, to conceal the troops and their weapons.
Mr Mackenzie received recognition for making more than 150 nets in 1942 alone in Melbourne's The Herald newspaper in December of that year.
"The nets he has made would stretch over three quarters of an acre. In one net alone there are 3600 meshes," it said.
Mrs Fischer said: "They were made from thick-ish cotton which hurt his fingers at first, but he soon got used to it. He could do anything, he could go shopping on his own and he used to measure you with his hands, saying 'come here and let me see how you've grown since I've seen you last!'.
"He had a sense of humour, and he used to come up and help on the farm at Minyip where they used to sew the wheat bags up. He would say "I'm stupid doing this in the middle of the day, I could do it just as good at night!'.
"Whether he got hit in the head with a stone or something else in Minyip I'm not quite sure. These days they would have done something, but back then they didn't have the know-how to fix it."
Mr Mackenzie stayed on the farm at Minyip for 11 years after his accident as a teenager. He met his wife Dulcie, a nurse in Wonthaggi, after the hospital matron - and friend of Mr Mackenzie's - sent her to receive him at a Melbourne train station. He died in 1958 at the age of 76.
Mrs Fischer was born in Willaura and grew up on a farm near Balmoral. Her father Ted Reeve served in World War I. She said it was important people remembered the efforts of people like her uncle.
"He wanted to do his bit for the war and he did," she said.
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