At a spritely 92, Nat Gould, is one of a diminishing few, perhaps the last of those Australian pilots who flew operationally during those desperate days of the Battle of Milne Bay.

That was the pivotal battle in August and September 1942 when Australian troops, supported by the RAAF's 75 and 76 Squadrons, turned back a Japanese landing on the eastern end of New Guinea, Japan's first defeat on land of the Pacific War.

Mr Gould visited the Australian War Memorial on Saturday to renew acquaintance with an old friend, P-40 Kittyhawk A29-133, named "Polly", which he flew at Milne Bay.

This wasn't his usual Kittyhawk. Polly belonged to Flight Lieutenant Buster Brown and was named after his girlfriend.

"For various reasons you might stand down and have a rest day or the aeroplane is unserviceable and you fly someone else's aeroplane. Polly I flew a number of times operationally," he said.

"I owned another one called Vodka."

Why Vodka, you might wonder.

It stems from Mr Gould's experiences as one of a small number of Aussie pilots who served in RAF squadrons sent to Russia in response to a plea to Britain for aid.

Mr Gould said he had flown Hurricanes and Spitfires in Britain but found the Kittyhawk somewhat agricultural, concurring with the view of a fellow pilot who described it as akin to flying a bulldozer with wings.

"I can't say I learned to love a Kittyhawk but I learned to admire it and be grateful for it because it could take a lot more punishment than a little Spitfire," he said.

Mr Gould flew from Australia to Port Moresby and then to Milne Bay, arriving a few weeks before the Japanese. In one mission against Japanese ships, he encountered rain and low cloud and terrifyingly heavy anti-aircraft fire.

He dropped his bomb on what he thought was a Japanese troopship. To his surprise, he was credited with sinking a small flak ship. Somehow that was recorded as the Japanese flagship, which apparently endures in some accounts of the battle.

In subsequent missions, he strafed Japanese landing barges and Japanese marines who stood waving on the beach, apparently in the belief that they would only see Japanese aircraft.

As the Japanese troops advanced, the Kittyhawks conducted repeated missions.

"You couldn't see the enemy. You would just strafe the jungle. At the next debriefing the army would telling us that we killed hundreds of them," he recalled.

"Then you would come back and land and rearm and refuel and have a pee on the tailplane. That was a good luck thing. Sorties would only be 10 minutes because the Japs weren't far from the end of the strip."

At the War Memorial, Mr Gould encountered another old friend, the Hawker Sea Fury on display in the Memorial's aircraft hall, which Mr Gould flew in operations during the Korean conflict.