Now 88, the Wagga resident said he could never forget how he felt when he first heard the news on February 15, 1942 - just five days before his 21st birthday.

After the largest surrender of British-led personnel in history, close to 80,000 Allied troops became prisoners of war.

"This event means so much to me because I was there in Java when it happened," said Albert, who spent the last three-and-a-half years of World War II in an Indonesian PoW camp.

"It's still very clear in my memory - I was stunned by the surrender. There were hundreds of thousands of people who could not believe it."

Fittingly, Albert will be guest speaker at a service at the Sandakan Memorial in the Victory Memorial Gardens on Monday to commemorate the Fall of Singapore.

"There are not too many of us (former PoWs) still around and in a few years time there won't be any, so it's important for us to make the most of opportunities such as these," he said.

The service, conducted by the Wagga RSL sub-branch to mark the 68th anniversary of the Fall of Singapore, will start at 11am.