The 92-year-old was a guest of honour at yesterday's Anzac Day service in the township, and later took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at its picturesque hilltop war memorial.
Mr Fisher and his wife, Norma, still live in their own home in Arrowtown, with two of their four children living nearby.
When in late 1943 his time came to join up, it was an easy decision to choose the navy, Mr Fisher said.
He had ''hated'' the compulsory military drills of his high school years: ''There was no way I was going into the army.''
After a signals training course in Dunedin, he sailed from Auckland to England, arriving in Plymouth only to be told to take two weeks' leave in Edinburgh.
''There were that many troops in the country at that stage, they didn't bloody want to see us.''
He finally made it to Bombay (now Mumbai), where he was drafted to the Royal Navy and posted to an old ferry converted into a headquarters ship, a vessel responsible for communications between aircraft, ships and shore.
With the rank of signalman, he spent the rest of the war patrolling off the Indian and Burmese coasts as the Royal Navy supported land-based operations.
Born and raised in Otautau, he spent most of his life in the Southland township, working as a self-employed accountant before retiring to Arrowtown in 1993.
He could recall missing only one Anzac Day service since the war, and found the continuing public interest in remembering New Zealanders killed in war ''fantastic, unbelievable''.
''It gets bigger each year.''
Sadly, there seemed no end to human conflict, Mr Fisher said.
''The news, 365 days in the year, is about about war somewhere around the world.''
