Cowra Prisoner-of-war Camp

Cowra Prisoner-of-war Camp was Australia's largest prisoner-of-war camp during the Second World War. This topic explores the lives of prisoners and guards, the famous 1944 breakout, and the camp's enduring place in Australian and Japanese history.

Blog post

Sources for Japanese breakout from Cowra Prisoner of War Camp

  • Blankets over the barbed wire - Cowra
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.
Book

An Attractive Naivety: Australia as a new nation in a complex world (Revised Edition)

An Attractive Naivety is an epic work of Australian historical fiction spanning the first half of the twentieth century. Through the lives of ordinary men and women, it traces the nation’s journey from Federation and plague to Depression, war, and uneasy peace. Interweaving fictional characters with real events, the novel explores the humour, hardship, courage and contradictions that shaped modern Australia.

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