Ron Ferguson, 92, sounded his bugle to alert guards of the 1104 Japanese POWs escaping in 1944

SEVEN decades ago Ron Ferguson sounded his bugle and raised the alarm on the biggest and deadliest prison break of WWII. He still remembers the machineguns firing.

SEVEN decades ago Ron Ferguson sounded his bugle and raised the alarm on the biggest and deadliest prison break of WWII.

On August 5, 1944 ,1104 Japanese prisoners escaped during the infamous Cowra breakout — which left 231 prisoners dead and 108 wounded. Four Australians also died.

Mr Ferguson, now 92, woke at 1.55am to sounds of the inmates scaling the fences and blew his bugle to alert the guards.

“I woke up and I got out of bed, looked out the window and that’s when it was all happening,” he said.

“I blew the bugle to get the boys out of bed. They broke out and there was a lot of running around. They were running around like a mad mob.”

One of Mr Ferguson’s strongest memories was the sound of the machineguns firing.

“I used to do a lot of target shooting and you get use to machineguns and that’s what was going on that night,” he said.

“If they died facing the enemy it was a great distinction for the Japanese. When they broke out they would say ‘Shoot me, shoot me’, but you just ignored them.”

The Japanese had planned the escape by organising a meeting with representatives from each of the living areas. They spread the instructions but promised to not attack any civilians in the community once outside.

It took authorities more than a week to return the surviving prisoners back to the Cowra camp.

Mr Ferguson has many other — fonder — memories of playing his bugle. He learnt to play the instrument during his childhood on the mid north coast. “When I was growing up in Gloucester, there were brass bands everywhere and that’s where I learnt,” he said.