Recalling the incident last week Ron, who has moved to Masterton to be close to family, said his dad circled around, ascended a ridge and came down behind where Lassie had been indicating.
"To his surprise he spied the man hiding in the bush watching our house."
Needless to say the Japanese prisoner was quick to put his hands up when he was challenged with a .303 rifle pointing at him, and near to where he had been flushed out a piece of number 8 wire fashioned into a spear was found.
The Japanese prisoner was taken out of the bush to the Udy home and ordered to sit in the corner of a room.
He was very hungry and was given bread and jam and appeared at that stage to have been quite happy to have been caught as it was clear he could never have survived by living off the land.
Hungry or not the recaptured Japanese would not eat until Eric had first done so and, in a mysterious gesture to his captor, he unscrewed a gold tooth and tried to present it to Eric who convinced him to put it back in his head.
"He then gave us his toothbrush and toothpaste which we put up on a wall inside and they remained there for years," Ron said.
By this time it was getting dark and Eric was pleased to have his hunting companion John Lyford return to the house and share "guard duty."
The Udy home was by today's standard very isolated, way up on the bushline in a spot where Ron said it was far from unusual to see his dad spot a deer from the house and shoot it from the back door.
It had a coal range for heating water and a water wheel ran water from the creek to drive a generator for electric lighting.
Eric Udy wasn't a farmer but instead managed a timber mill in the area that milled native timbers like rimu and matai.
John Lyford was a strapping fellow who towered over both Eric and the recaptured prisoner so it was decided to tie the Japanese prisoner to John's arm and to ferry them to Greytown on the back of a Model T truck.
It was then that young Ron was allowed to step forward and eyeball the prisoner, a privilege not extended to his two older sisters Shirley and Dawn.
"I went out and had a good look at the bloke but I was really too young to get the meaning of what was happening.
"It didn't mean a hell of a lot to me, but it does now," Ron said.
Once back in custody at the camp the escaper was asked how he had got out.
He had hid in shadows on a stormy night, climbed an inner compound fence, and outer compound fence and then scaled the barbed wire perimeter fence, despite the place being lit up at night like daylight and guarded by sentries.
The recaptured prisoner told an interpreter he had gone into the hills because he thought from there he might be able to see Mount Fujiyama.
Eric Udy and John Lyford were rewarded for making the capture with a meal and a gallon of petrol. The exact date of the escape, or the recapture, do not seem to have been documented but it is thought to have been some time in 1943.
Ron Udy also recalled the day-to-day goings on when the camp was in business.
He remembers seeing the prisoners being escorted up Wood Street, Greytown, to be put to work in market gardens.
"We used to throw pennies and halfpennies onto the tray of the trucks and they used to throw us little carved animals they had made.
"Sometimes we would come across them in Everett's Store where they were taken under guard to buy lollies."
