News-Info-Alerts

Re: Former POW Camp May Get World Heritage Listing

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: April 03, 2002

"POW heritage list
By MARK SCALA Regional reporter - Daily Telegraph

THE site of the only battle fought on Australian soil during World War II – the Cowra prisoner-of-war camp – may soon join the world heritage list. A thermal archaeological survey of the camp where 378 Japanese prisoners escaped will also be conducted under plans to recognise the site, which has been neglected since 1947.

The Cowra Shire Council has commissioned heritage consultants to help the former POW camp attain world heritage listing.

The prison camp is already on the national heritage register.

With the 60th anniversary of the battle approaching on August 5, 2004, the historical survey is seen as the last chance to commemorate the site before the original survivors of the breakout pass away.

It is also hoped the survey will uncover secrets buried under the camp. Today only exposed building foundations are visible in an empty field.

A similar thermal survey performed on the site of General George Custer's Last Stand in the United States was used to hunt for relics dropped and buried during the battle.

Yesterday Cowra council's economic development manager, Graham Apthorpe, said it was difficult to "recapture" the prison breakout, believed to be the largest POW breakout ever made in modern history.

"The impact of the breakout, a battle which occurred in a field, was overnight and it was lost fairly quickly," Mr Apthorpe said.

"We've always wrestled with the problem of what to do with a site that's fairly significant, but has very little on it."

He said a tasteful reconstruction may also be considered for the camp site which was dismantled and sold off two years after World War 11 ended.

Tourism manager Lawrance Ryan said while the breakout site was well know to locals, most Australians knew little about it and would find it hard to locate.

"It was something that when it happened it was known in this area but to a certain extent it was kept as quiet as possible for fear of reprisal on Australian POW's," Mr Ryan said.

On August 5, 1944, about 1000 Japanese soldiers rushed the barbed wire fences and machinegun posts, where they killed two of the Australians.

During the breakout four Australian's were killed and 231 Japanese prisoners lost their lives.

In the next nine days 334 prisoners were rounded up, with many others either being killed or suiciding before their recapture.

A military inquiry later found no breaches of international conventions or complaints by Japanese prisoners about their treatment.

Many historical records and documents about the outbreak are held in the Australian War Memorial and the National Archives.

Among the items seized immediately after the breakout is the bugle blown by the Japanese to signal the attack.

The instrument, which was blown by Sgt Hajime Toyoskima, is now on display at the Australian War Memorial.

Marion Starr, secretary of the Cowra Breakout Association and great-niece of the fiance of Ralph Jones, an Australian soldier killed in one of the guard towers, said the site had world significance.

"It's a slice of Australian history that's not really well known or appreciated," she said.

"A lot has been lost already and something needs to be done before it's all gone." "