"I was incarcerated in this box which had been a crate surrounding something like a domestic refrigerator. It was 4 foot 6 long and it was about 2 foot 6 wide and 3 foot 6 high. You couldn't stretch out in it. You couldn't stand up. You could barely sit up without hitting your head on the top and I'd been very comfortable in this for nearly three weeks. I used to, there was a stream, tiny little stream just above the box and they let me out to wash once a day and I was able to keep myself clean.

"Then they put a Korean, South Korean soldier captured and wounded in. We couldn't converse very much, you know number one number ten were about the limits of our joint experience nevertheless I was quite comfortable with him in the sense that he could sit opposite me and my feet and his upper body sort of fitted the box reasonably well but a few days later they put in a civilian who was incredibly dirty. His clothes were filthy. His nails were filthy and his manners were appalling but the poor fellow had a rope around his neck which were tied to his feet and it was very difficult for us to let him sit in any way that gave him comfort. About the third night after he'd been in there he managed to get some slack in his, in the ropes and he pushed his feet in such a way that the rope around his neck was strangling him. It was possible that he was a spy or accused of spying or something of that nature but anyway he was dead keen to kill himself this night and all I can remember was waking up from a fitful sleep with this face about that far from me and spew and spit and everything coming out of him and I just pushed him back as a reaction and the guards came running and everything like that and he was taken out and made to sit outside for the night.

"That was one of the incidents I think which made me decide that I was going to get out of the box as soon as I could. I didn't think I would survive too long with the three of us in there."

CAPTAIN PHIL GREVILLE