"Whilst we were on the ridgeline at Kapyong, that afternoon after having moved in and trying to dig in on the spur line, which we couldn't dig in, and our only defences were rocks which we sort of used a protective cover. And the first indication was late, probably as darkness descended was to hear the bugles, the whistles and the feeling I guess was boy, this is it.

"This is going to be the night when they're going to hit us really hard, because the sound of these whistles and bugles, you could pick it up from a fair distance on the left to a fair distance on the right, so you knew that there were many, many people there.

"And the whistleblowers were the platoon commanders, so you just imagine that they, between each whistle you heard, there would have been about 30, 40 men in each group, and multiply that probably about 20 or 30 or forty times, plus the bugle blasts, how many people behind each bugle blast I've never worked out. [laughs] But the feeling was very strange really. It was just sort of, I don't know, you were just waiting for the inevitable.

"You were either going to stay there for ever on that hill, or you might survive. It was a very, very strange feeling. Eerie, very eerie. And of course, it's like an orchestra of sound you know.

"You're sitting there, you're listening to all these noises of rifle fire, grenades going off, artillery shells going of, the whistle blasts, the bugles, the screams. Chinese sounds, some noise below, the clattering of rocks, people climbing out. You throw a few grenades, but it's the noise, it's like, it's a symphony of war that particular night."

CORPORAL JOE VEZGOFF