Japanese breakout from 12 Prisoner of War Camp, Cowra - sources

David Gormley-…
Blankets over the barbed wire - Cowra
Aftermath of Japanese breakout from Cowra - 5 August 1944 Clothes and blankets cover barb-wire fence.

At 1.50 am on 5 August 1944, almost a thousand Japanese prisoners-of-war interned at No. 12 Prisoner of War Camp, Cowra, NSW, staged a mass breakout. 22 Garrison Battalion was assign as the camp guard. Armed with improvised weapons including baseball bats and sharpened mess knives the Japanese stormed the prison barb-wire fences. 234 Japanese prisoners died with 108 wounded. Four Australian guards were killed, with four wounded (three by friendly fire).

NAA Fact Sheet 198: Cowra breakout, 1944 (pdf)

The following includes a list of sources to aid researchers of this event.

22 Garrison Battalion - Unit War Diaries - Australian War Memorial

National Australian Archives

Japanese Cowra trials 

  • SP196/, 1 part 1 Japanese Cowra Trials [military Court trial of PWJA 145648, Yoshida, Hiroshi, 12 Prisoner of War Camp, Cowra]
  • SP196/, 1 part 2 Japanese Cowra Trials [military Court trial of PWJA 145648, Yoshida, Hiroshi and PWJA 145535, Kanazawa, Akiro / Akira, 12 Prisoner of War Camp, Cowra]
  • SP196/, 1 part 3 Japanese Cowra Trials [inquisition held by the Coroner at the Court House and the Prisoner of War Camp at Cowra, 11-15 December 1944; 3 copies] [0.5cm each copy; box 1]
  • SP196/, 1 part 4 Japanese Cowra Trials [enquiry into the death at Cowra Prisoner of War Camp, of Harry Doncaster, Charles Henry Shepherd, Benjamin Gower Hardy and Ralph Jones, and a number of Japanese prisoners of war; charges against PWJA 145535 Sgt/Maj Kanazawa, Akira]
  • SP196/, 1 part 5 Japanese Cowra Trials [transcript of Inquiry into deaths at Japanese Prisoner of War Camp, Cowra, heard 11-15 December 1944 by the Coroner at Cowra,
  • SP196/, 1 part 6 Japanese Cowra Trials [charges against PWJA 145535 Sgt/Maj Kanazawa, Akira, Cowra Prisoner of War Camp, abstract of evidence
  • SP196/, 1 part 7 Japanese Cowra Trials [inquisition before the Coroner, held at the Court House and the Prisoner of War Camp at Cowra 11-15 December 1944, and statements dated 31 October 1944]
  • SP196/, 1 part 8 Japanese Cowra Trials [outbreak of Japanese prisoners from Cowra Prisoner of War Camp, 5 August 1944 and arrangements for the inquiry]

Thematic

Graham Apthorpe, A town at war: stories from Cowra in World War II (Self published, 2008)
Teruhiko Asada, Cowra: The night of a thousand suicides (North Ryde, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1985).
Harry Gordon, Die like the Carp (New South Wales: Cassell Australia, 1978).
Mat McLachlan, The Cowra Breakout (Sydney: Hachette, 2022).
Neil Smith, Men of Cowra: the 22nd Garrison Battalion and the Cowra break-out 1944 (Gardenvale, Vic: Mostly Unsung Military History Research and Publications, 2006)

Historical Fiction

David Gormley-O'Brien, An Attractive Naivety: Australia as a new nation in a complex world (Rev. Ed.) (Nihil Alienum, 2026)

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