Tag: Cowra

Respect and honour

By 1946 over 500 Japanese had died in Australia. This number included those who died in the breakout of August 1944.

The Japanese who died in attempting to escape were buried in a plot next to the Australian War Cemetery in Cowra. 
The war ended and the RSL (Returned and Services League) of Australia would keep the Australian War Cemetery neat and tidy, and as time went on, they also kept the Japanese cemetery clean and tidy. 

 In the 1950’s the Australian government and the Japanese government became concerned about the Japanese graves.
The Japanese government in 1955 began to collect information about their dead in Australia and considered the possibility of repatriation of the dead back to Japan.
In 1959 it was decided that a Japanese official cemetery should be created and all the Japanese dead in Australia (there were Japanese buried in Darwin) be interned in one location.

In 1962 Cowra was suggested as the location for the Japanese cemetery. The people of Cowra responded in a positive way to the suggestion and the land next to the Australian War Cemetery in Cowra was chosen.
The Japanese Government was given a perpetual lease for this land by the Australian Government.

After all Japanese dead within Australia were transferred to the new cemetery it was officerly opened on the 22nd November 1964.
The design of the cemetery was the work of Shigeru Yura, a Japanese architect who taught at Melbourne University. Check the above photographs for his work.

Each August there is a ceremony held at the Japanese Cemetery – the graves are marked with a plaque that details the life of the interned – name, date of birth, date of death and any other information known about the deceased.   
In 1971 Cowra Tourism Development came up with the idea of a Japanese Garden to celebrate the link between the town and Japan. The Japanese Government agreed to support this idea because it was a way that they could show their appreciation for the respectful treatment of their dead. 

In 1979 The Cowra Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre opened, and the location of the gardens is the site of where the Japanese PoW camp was located, and where the Breakout took place.  

The garden is five hectares (12.5 acres) and is the largest Japanese garden in the southern hemisphere. It is a ‘must’ to see.

The ducks were not frightened and would walk towards us as if they knew we had food for them . . unfortunately we didn’t. 

We could walk the three kilometres or just under two miles of paths or we could walk on the grass, the garden is a strolling garden for use, not just for photographing.

Bamboo tipping tube – it fills with water and when a certain weight is reached it tips the water out. I think it is called a Shishi Odoshi or deer scarer.

Shishi Odoshi – deer scarer 

Waterfall

Lake

Just a few of the many photographs that I took during our walk. 

and of course Japanese fish in the lake.

The gardens are magnificent, and so relaxing, with places to sit and just admire the view, wherever you looked.  

and a display of bonsai plants – the above from 1987


 This was planted in 1977

We meandered through the cultural area 

The day was a beautiful day with clear blue sky and a warm sun, without being too hot, it was a perfect day for viewing the gardens. We saw a few gardeners working around the garden, they would never be out of work.  

The Cowra Japanese garden is a copy of the original garden built by the first Shogun (Tokugawa Ieyasu) who ruled in 1600.
His castle was in Edo, which in 1868 had a name change to become Tokyo. 

The Cowra Japanese garden was designed by Ken Nakajima, a Japanese garden architect, who received the Order of the Rising Sun from Emperor Hirohito in 1986 for promoting Japanese culture worldwide.
Mr Nakajima died in 2000 and his company has passed to his son.    

The garden has six elements of design – mountain, rocks, mountain waterfalls, mountain lakes, rivers turning into oceans and pine trees.

The gardens can be used for weddings, private functions, birthdays etc.

 

PoW Camp 12 – 1941 – 1947

After the fall of France, in June of 1940 Benito Mussolini of Italy declared war on Great Britain.

Benito Mussolini  – 1883 – 1945

Mussolini ordered his general in N. Africa, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, to attack the British, which he did reluctantly in September 1940.

Marshal Rodolfo Graziani 1882-1955

The British, supported by Commonwealth troops from Australia, New Zealand and India, under British general Lt. Gen. Sir Richard O’Connor, had defeated the Italians by the third of January 1941 and captured 130,000 troops and all their equipment. The British had lost 555 dead and 1400 wounded


In all 400,000 Italian troops were sent to POW camps around the world. Australia received 18,420 and the small town of Cowra was allocated about 2000. These prisoners arrived in Cowra in October 1941.

There were 28 POW camps across Australia and Cowra was number 12.

In 1941 the camp had been created as an internment camp for civilians, but it soon became a POW camp for Italian prisoners captured during the North African campaign.
By December 1942 the camp had grown because in addition to the Italians, there were 490 Javanese sailors, 1104 Japanese POWs and 1200 Indonesian internees.
The internees were a mix of merchant navy sailors and exiled nationalists from Dutch New Guinea (which is now part of Indonesia) who had taken part in the 1926 uprising against the Dutch. The Dutch Government was concerned that the Nationalists might join the Japanese.
There were also a number of Koreans from Korea and Chinese from Taiwan because Korea had been under Japanese rule since 1910 and Taiwan had been under Japanese rule since 1895 – these non-Japanese had served with the Japanese military.

Australian War Memoria photograph of camp 12.

The relationship between the Australians and the Italians was easier than the relationship with the Japanese. The Japanese considered that being a prisoner of war was humiliating and many gave false names so as not to bring shame on their family in Japan.
The Japanese soldier carried a copy of Senjinkun, which was the military code for a Japanese soldier that he would “Never live to experience shame as a prisoner”, which is why some gave false names. The code forbids the Japanese soldier to retreat or being taken prisoner by an enemy.

This indoctrination of the Japanese soldier caused ‘festering’ within the ranks of the Japanese.

The camp itself was large at over thirty hectares (74 acres) in size.

                       Australian War Memoria photograph
as you see there were three lines of barbed wire, plus six guard towers
A guard tower –
it is not an original, but a replica of what they looked like in the 1940’s.  

In August of 1944 there was in intention to move all Japanese prisoners below the rank of Lance Corporal to another POW camp in Hay, which is in NSW.

This was the ‘spark’ that generated the breakout. 
The Japanese commander of ‘B’ compound Sergeant Major Kanazawa called a meeting of the commanders of the twenty Japanese huts and told them to inform each hut that the transfers were about to happen. He also wanted each hut to hold a ballot for or against a breakout. There where arguments on both sides for and against the breakout, but in the end, it was decided that the breakout would be that night.

It was decided that any injured or wounded prisoner could restore their honour by committing suicide before the breakout, plus those who manage to escape would not harm local civilians.

As the Japanese waited for the signal for the breakout they made weapons from cutlery, baseball bats, plus baseball mitts and blankets were made ready for scaling the barbed wire.

It was 2.00 am when the bugle sounded for the mass escape. 

Australian War memorial photograph 

The above is a picture of the bugle that signalled the beginning of the breakout. 

On the 5th August 1944, at 2.00 am the Japanese breakout began with the sound of the above bugle.

The prisoners ran with their newly made weapons shouting and screaming towards the camp gates. They threw themselves at the barbed wire while yelling Banzai (which means “Long live His Majesty the Emperor”). 

The Australians opened fire, but hundreds of Japanese escaped into the country, while others set fire to buildings within the camp.  

In all 234 Japanese were killed and 105 wounded. Five Australian died due to the breakout.

Some Japanese committed suicide or where killed by other Japanese, remember  Senjinkun “Never live to experience shame as a prisoner”.

359 Japanese escaped, some committed suicide rather than be recaptured, but all were recaptured or accounted for within ten days.

There isn’t any record of any civilian being injured or killed by the Japanese. 

The above is a map of the whole camp, and the red area is the Japanese part of the camp. The green arrows show the various directions of the breakout.

The two yellow areas were the Italian prisoners, and the blue area indicates Japanese officers, Korean and Chinese prisoners, the Indonesians and Italian fascists. 

I took the above two photographs of PoW Camp 12 today . . . just a few ruins left in a beautiful country view.

At the camp site today there is a memorial to remember the Australian solider, the Japanese baseball player, the Italian musician and the Indonesian mother and child.
The memorial was erected in 2019 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the breakout. 
The Japanese prisoners were repatriated between 1946 – 47. It is thought that many of the ex-prisoners never spoke of the war, or their time in captivity on their return to Japan.

There is more to this story, but this will have to wait for the next posting.   

Cowra

Sea cruising might not yet be allowed due to the fear of Covid but land cruising is still available.
I never get tired of driving around the Australian countryside – an open road with little traffic and a sunburned country, what more could we want?

In our latest ‘land cruise’ we managed to ‘cruise’ 1,800 km (1,120 miles) in the seven days.

Our destination was Cowra, which was to be our main base. The original name of the settlement was Coura Rocks, because this was the name of one of the first cattle farms. The name ‘Cowra’ is an Aboriginal name for ‘Eagle on the Rocks’. 

The drive from home was about four and a half hours, but of course we did not drive continuously for that length of time.
Around three hours after leaving home we stopped at Boorowa for a picnic lunch.

Our picnic lunch was in the grounds of the Court House of Boorowa, because there were tables, seats and a clean public BBQ at a cost of ten cents.
The one thing that I have noticed when visiting small country towns is that they all advertise a free rest area, with ample parking, clean toilets, and some offer free cups of tea or coffee.

On the day we visited the Court House they had an arts & craft exhibition, with many items for sale such as jams, marmalade and local handmade items. They always have a second-hand book stall so while I browsed the books Maureen had a look around at the produce and other items.

The picnic stop was across the road from the local pub, so for those who imbibed a little too much the walk to the courthouse was not far.
The Court House is behind me, the local pub across the road – all very efficient.  

      

I had booked us in to the Vineyard Motel, which was a few minutes’ drive out of Cowra.

It was an unusual motel – because there were only six ‘apartments’, but each apartment had a front door and a back door.
In the morning we would open the east facing door and watch the sunrise.

sunrise 01 Still photographs fail to grasp the whole sequence of the sun rising and the dramatic change of colours across the sky.

sunrise 02

In the evening we would stand outside the west door of our apartment and watch the sunset.
Outside of each of the doors there were chairs and a small table for drinks as we watched a magnificent free show – Hollywood eat your heart out, nature always wins.

sunseting

Sun setting over the vineyards.

room2

Our accommodation was a good size with a double bed and a single bed as well as the table & chairs.

room 01

In addition we had a large bathroom and a small kitchen with all the amenities that we required. The nightly rate included breakfast.

The motel was surround by vineyards and the local wines were available to purchase in your room. Very convenient.

The neighbouring vineyard also had alpacas, but the one I manage to photograph had recently been shorn.

  alpaca

This alpaca shared the field with sheep – but this fellow did not like having his photo taken – he kept turning away, perhaps he was shy without his coat.

drink view

At the top of the shadows a dark green vegetation can be seen – this is one of the local vineyards.  

There is an unusual bell in Cowra called the Peace Bell, it is unusual because it is the only Peace Bell in the World not located in a city.

The population of Cowra is around 10,000 citizens. 

The reason for the Peace Bell will become obvious in the next blog.

%d bloggers like this: