| Event Name: | Cowra Breakout |
| Coordinates: | -33.8114°N 148.7039°W |
| Date: | 5 August 1944 |
| Deaths: | 235 |
| Result: | ~359 Japanese POWs escape |
The Cowra Breakout occurred on 5 August 1944, when 1,104 Japanese prisoners of war escaped from a POW camp near Cowra, in New South Wales, Australia. It was the largest prison escape of World War II, as well as one of the bloodiest. During the escape and ensuing manhunt, four Australian soldiers were killed and 231 Japanese soldiers were killed or committed suicide. The remaining escapees were re-captured and imprisoned.
Situated some due west of Sydney, Cowra is the town nearest to No. 12 Prisoner of War Compound, a major POW camp where 4,000 Axis military personnel and civilians were detained throughout World War II. The prisoners at Cowra also included 2,000 Italians, Koreans and Taiwanese (who had served in the Japanese military) as well as Indonesian civilians, detained at the request of the Dutch East Indies government.[1]
By August 1944, there were 2,223 Japanese POWs in Australia, including 544 merchant seamen. There were also 14,720 Italian prisoners, the majority of whom had been captured in the North African Campaign, as well as 1,585 Germans, most of whom were captured naval or merchant seamen.
Although the POWs were treated in accordance with the 1929 Geneva Convention, relations between the Japanese POWs and the guards were poor, due largely to significant cultural differences.[2] A riot by Japanese POWs at Featherston prisoner of war camp in New Zealand, in February 1943, led to security being tightened at Cowra.
Eventually the camp authorities installed several Vickers and Lewis machine guns to augment the rifles carried by the members of the Australian Militia's 22nd Garrison Battalion, which was composed mostly of old or disabled veterans or young men considered physically unfit for front-line service.
In the first week of August 1944, a tip-off from an informer (recorded in some sources to be a Korean informant using the name Matsumoto)[3] at Cowra led authorities to plan to move all Japanese POWs at Cowra, except officers and NCOs, to another camp at Hay, New South Wales, some to the west. The Japanese were notified of the move on 4 August.
In the words of historian Gavin Long, the following night:
The bugler, Hajime Toyoshima, had been Australia's first Japanese prisoner of the war.[4] Soon afterwards, prisoners set most of the buildings in the Japanese compound on fire.
Within minutes of the start of the breakout attempt, Privates Benjamin Gower Hardy and Ralph Jones manned the No. 2 Vickers machine-gun and began firing into the first wave of escapees. They were soon overwhelmed by a wave of Japanese prisoners who had breached the lines of barbed wire fences. Before dying, Private Hardy managed to remove and throw away the gun's bolt, rendering the gun useless. This prevented the prisoners from turning the machine gun against the guards.
Some 359 POWs escaped, while some others attempted or committed suicide, or were killed by their countrymen. Some of those who did escape also committed suicide to avoid recapture. All the survivors were recaptured within 10 days of their breakout.[5]
During the escape and subsequent round-up of POWs, four Australian soldiers and 231 Japanese soldiers were killed and 108 prisoners were wounded. The leaders of the breakout ordered the escapees not to attack Australian civilians, and none were killed or injured.
The government conducted an official inquiry into the events. Its conclusions were read to the Australian House of Representatives by Prime Minister John Curtin on 8 September 1944. Among the findings were:
Privates Hardy and Jones were posthumously awarded the George Cross as a result of their actions.
A fifth Australian, Thomas Roy Hancock of C Company 26 Battalion V.D.C. was accidentally shot by another volunteer while dismounting from a vehicle, in the process of deploying to protect railways and bridges from the escapees. Hancock later died of sepsis.
Australia continued to operate No. 12 Camp until the last Japanese and Italian prisoners were repatriated in 1947.
Cowra maintains a significant Japanese war cemetery, the only such cemetery in Australia. In addition, the nearby Cowra Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre, a commemorative Japanese garden, was later built on Bellevue Hill to memorialize these events. The garden was designed by Ken Nakajima in the style of the Edo period.[6]
The last survivor of the breakout attempt, Teruo Murakami, died in Japan on September 14 2023.[7]