Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Mat McLachlan, Hachette Australia, $32.99.
This is a fascinating untold story of the only World War II battle fought on Australian soil.
Cowra in central NSW was where Japanese prisoners of war were held in an internment camp. By August 1944 over a thousand were interned and on the icy night of 5 August they staged the largest prison breakout in history. More than 230 Japanese POWs and four Australian soldiers died during what became known as The Cowra Breakout.
Historian Mat McLachlan (Walking with the Anzacs, Gallipoli: The Battlefield Guide) vividly traces the full story of the breakout. It is a tale of proud warriors and misfit Australian soldiers. Of negligence, complacency and cover-ups, of authorities too slow to recognise danger before it occurred, and too quick to cover it up when it was too late.
“What went on in Cowra on a frosty winter’s night was brought about by a clash of cultures, a tempest of misunderstanding, animosity and shame that eventually couldn’t be contained, and erupted into violence. At the time it was covered up, dismissed as an aberration, a senseless waste of life in a war that was defined by senseless wastes of life.”
“But over time the Cowra Breakout has come to mean something more – it’s come to represent the heavy burden borne by all who participated in the Second World War, the importance of crossing cultural bridges and the beauty of reconciliation. Even after 80 years, the ghosts of Cowra have an important story to tell.”
Here is a compelling chapter of Australian history that’s mostly a story about ‘raw human emotions, and the extremes that people will go to when they feel all hope is lost’.
