"It was the first time I'd ever been overseas like so many of us and I got there in September which was towards the end of summer and winter was approaching and when winter came of course it was completely different from anything I ever had in Australia because I'd never seen snow before.

"There were many like me and we got around throwing snowballs at one another for about half an hour and got sick and tired of that and lived on to the fullness of the Korean winter when we were sometimes walking round in snow inches deep particularly if you had to be out, out of bed early in the morning to get aircraft ready for the first missions or the first alerts. We had people on standby for an hour before dawn and that was only in case we might have been attacked by enemy aircraft."

CORPORAL PAT MELICAN