attack would come against one of the border stations in the near future. Ample evidence of the coming attack was discovered by British patrols, but signs of enemy troop movements were disregarded and newly cleared positions were mistaken for ambush sites. Thus the base was continually left with the bare minimum number of men as the majority that could be spared went out on patrol. As a result of these conditions, only 36 men were present in the base in the early morning hours of 27 April 1965 when it came under ferocious attack by 150 to 400 Indonesian troops, supported by artillery and rocket fire. Immediately, the Indonesians swarmed into one segment of the trenches and destroyed one of the two mortars. Indonesian artillery fire continued to rain down on the camp, wounding several men and sending the defenders into disarray. Sergeant-Major Williams rushed to the headquarters to order the artillery officer to bombard the taken positions before attempting to organise a counterattack himself. Whilst under heavy Indonesian fire, Williams gathered a section of defenders who had taken refuge in a slit trench and led them towards the captured outer positions. A shell landed among the group and wounded half of them, but Williams and the remainder engaged at least thirty Indonesian infantry who had been firing into the base from the trench in vicious hand-to-hand combat and managed to push them from it with minor casualties. Williams then looked to secure the perimeter, but seeing that the Indonesians were massing for a second attack, he sat down in a vacated machine gun nest and sprayed the new wave of attackers, who attempted to seize the command bunker, with fire. This was not without cost, and Williams was fortunate to have escaped with a single head wound, which nevertheless blinded him in one eye, though he did not notice this in the heat of battle. Williams then began to receive supporting rifle fire from other British troops in nearby trenches, as well bombardment from the single remaining mortar and some 105mm artillery emplacements from a nearby camp. After an hour and a half had gone (and twenty minutes had passed since the second attack) the Indonesians launched a third and final attack up the slope towards the base, which the British responded to with artillery and grenade fire. This defence was remarkably effective, and eventually the barrage of Indonesian