HMAS Perth survivor, Gavin Campbell's gun never fired a shot on the night the ship engaged a Japanese invasion fleet during the Battle of Sunda Strait 73 years ago.
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His post was the four-barrelled .5 inch machine gun above the X-turret at the rear of the ship.
"It was an anti-aircraft weapon," he said. "It just didn't have the range."
Mr Campbell, now 94, was a sub lieutenant and Perth commander, Captain Hec Waller's, secretary at the time of the battle in which both HMAS Perth and the American cruiser, USS Houston, were sunk.
Just 21 when the battle was fought, he has lived with the memories of the night of February 28 and the early morning of March 1, 1942, for a lifetime.
"They come back, they come back," he said at Friday's Battle of Sunda Strait Commemoration at the Australian War Memorial. "The memories of what happened on the night and what followed (three-and-a-half years as a prisoner-of-war).
"You try to push them back but you still hear guns firing (and) people shouting. It's very difficult at times."
Although Mr Campbell's gun was never brought to bear he did save a life.
"We didn't fire at all," he said. "When X-turret went off were absolutely blinded by the flash. You would hear the fire gong go and just brace yourself for the explosion."
While the battle had been orders of magnitude more terrible than any previous engagements, training overcame fear.
"The Mediterranean (deployment) was convoy duties and bombardment but this was life and death and we knew it."
The two sailors manning his gun had stood up to combat well.
"One bloke said `I haven't got my Mae West' (lifejacket). I said `you'd better go and get it'.
"He survived; had he been without it (he might not have)."
Mr Campbell, who worked for James Hardie after the war and contracted a treatable form of asbestosis, was just going over the rail when the final Japanese torpedo hit.
When he landed in the water his shoes were missing and his leg was broken. Bob Collins, another survivor, set the leg with a crude splint made from crate timber and strips torn from his overalls, in the liferaft.
Mr Campbell walked on the leg for weeks until he was captured by the Japanese.
"Bob did an extraordinary job," he said. "There was no traction so the leg is an inch shorter than the other one but it could have been much worse."
The sinking of HMAS Perth is second only to the loss of HMAS Sydney in the annals of Australian naval disasters.
Of her 681 officers and crew, 351 were killed on the night and 106 died in captivity.
USS Houston's death toll was even worse. Of her 1008 officers and crew 638 were killed in action and 104 died in captivity.
