Lester Marks is a Wotjobaluk man whose family lived on the Ebenezer Mission in North West Victoria. He grew up in Dimboola, Victoria, and was working in a commercial vegetable garden when he was called up and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) in 1940. The AIF posted Lester to the 19 Machine Gun Regiment with whom he completed his initial training in Bendigo in August 1941. He was sent to Darwin in January 1942 and was there for the first Japanese bombing of the town on 19 February 1942. The Japanese continued bombing raids for nearly two years and Lester remained in Darwin during this time. In June 1944 he was transferred to Queensland before joining the 2/2 Machine Gun Battalion and sent to fight the Japanese in Tarakan, an island off Borneo in Indonesia, in April 1945. Lester remained at Tarakan until the war ended and he returned to Australia. He was discharged from the AIF in April 1946. (source:http://www.victoriansatwar.net/)
