Outbreak Of Memories

Newcastle Herald

Saturday September 18, 2004

Mike Scanlon

NEVER in his wildest dreams did young Jim Carney ever expect World War II to break out in the countryside around Cowra, NSW.

"I was only 13. It's a most impressionable age but mid-western NSW is still an unlikely place for a war," he said. "And those of us who remember it are fast dying out."

For 60 years ago last month, our present major trading partner, Japan, was the enemy and had planned to invade Australia.

Now 73, of Merewether Heights, Jim Carney was living in the Lyndhurst region, near Cowra, when panic swept through the district at daybreak on Saturday, August 5, 1944.

Earlier on, about 2am, the largest prisoner of war (POW) breakout in modern military history occurred at Cowra, about 300 kilometres from Sydney. The ensuing manhunt lasted nine days.

The mass breakout of Japanese prisoners of war at Number 12 camp, hidden behind Cowra's Billygoat Hill, was sparked as Japanese POWs were about to be transferred to the Hay district.

The Japanese POWs felt dishonoured, now believing that capture was the ultimate disgrace for their families back home. Many decided to abide by the code of Bushido (the warrior) and die while escaping. They carried baseball bats, mess knives and sharpened gardening tools.

The frenzied Japanese swarmed over the camp's barbed wire perimeter after setting fire to their huts behind them. A lone bugle sounded. The camp searchlights suddenly died. Machine guns chattered. Soon, dozens of lifeless bodies dangled from barbed wire fences.

Yet the story of the mass breakout was virtually suppressed from the Australian public for about 34 years.

Why? Well, according to Jim Carney and several Maitland people who still remember the drama, families were initially asked to keep silent as authorities feared reprisals against the many Aussie soldiers held by the Japanese forces in 1944.

"For me that one day is more vivid than any other," Carney said. "I went to bed with the night cold, the stars bright and signs of a severe frost likely the next morning. We awoke to the sound of a neighbour pounding on the door saying: 'The Japs have broken out from the POW camp at Cowra [about 40 kilometres distant] and are heading this way.' "Now, nothing exciting had happened at Lyndhurst since the demise of the Ben Hall bushranger gang and to a 13-year-old, the day looked as if it was to be exciting and dangerous.

"The arrival of soldiers to guard the town confirmed the rumour that 1100 Japanese, with the assistance of hundreds of blankets, had rushed and climbed over the POW camp's barbed wire fence.

"They were now loose in the countryside and armed with knives stuck into the handles of baseball bats and a variety of home-made weapons," he said.

"With Oriential wisdom, the Japanese had chosen 2am on a weekend for their outbreak. They chose well. Most of the guards were asleep, neither of the two Vickers machine guns were manned and the soldier in the watchtower was not to be seen.

"Fortunately a Japanese soldier who had different ideas about being killed ran up to the main gate screaming for help and this awakened the camp."

Carney said two Australian soldiers pulled greatcoats over pyjamas and beat the main body of escapers to one machine gun and managed to open fire before the escapees killed them.

In all, 231 Japanese and four Australians lost their lives in what was to become the largest POW escape anywhere in the world.

"In outlying areas, railway fettlers were called out to look under bridges, although it was said that no one wanted to be a hero, not on railway pay anyway," he said.

"Householders were visited by the police and army and told to bring all guns, axes and garden tools inside. Soldiers from the nearby army camp were then used to comb the countryside for survivors from the outbreak.

"That night, with our potential weapons close by our beds we tried to sleep, but every time I looked at the half frosted over windows I could imagine I saw a Japanese face highlighted by the moonlight which was playing tricks on a young and somewhat frightened mind.

"The four soldiers outside, under the street light, were a comfort but not if I had known that they were 18 years of age, had been in the army three weeks and were not allowed to carry rifles in case they shot us, or themselves, instead of the Japs."

Carney said Cowra High School, on the following Monday, was abuzz with news.

"On the school bus we'd passed the scene where two escapees had been cut to pieces by the Cowra mail train and blood-stained clothing was on the railway fence.

As more students boarded the bus, everyone learned more.

"One boy had been out rabbiting with his father when they came across six Japanese and he shot two of them, much to the later dismay of the authorities.

"Another boy a year older than me had captured one prisoner and his mother had baked scones and made made tea for two others while she waited for the police to officially capture them."

Carney said he later learned that a father of a school mate had captured four prisoners in his farm shed six days afterwards. They had been living on boiled wheat and tea and had lost their desire to be free.

"And what beat them? Perhaps it was not the older soldiers, many of who were from World War I," he said.

"Nor was it the unarmed young soldiers, who in fright abandoned their officer and he was killed. No, it was the huge size of the Australian countryside in comparison to Japan and the extreme cold of a western NSW moonlit winter night. It's hard to be brave when you are cold and hungry," Carney said.

The immediate aftermath of the POW uprising he later learned was 231 Japanese dead, 108 wounded with 334 roaming the countryside. Four Australian soldiers were bludgeoned and stabbed to death and four wounded. One soldier died after disabling the machine gun firing mechanism to prevent the weapon being turned on other Australian soldiers.

Eighteen of the camp's 20 huts were burnt to the ground. Some 25 Japanese committed suicide by hanging themselves or throwing themselves in front of passing trains. One even chose ritual disembowelment.

The dead Japanese POWs were buried at night in a mass grave but, after the war, an enduring friendship slowly evolved between Japan and the Cowra township, Mr Carney said.

The healing and reconciliation over the war with Japan began in Cowra. There's now even a beautiful traditional Japanese garden there built by the people of Cowra as a gesture of peace and goodwill.

Today, many Japanese people come to Cowra to inspect the bare, tussocky hillside where the POW camp once stood.

Ageing wartime foes have now become friends over what was World War II's only battle to take place on Australian soil.

© 2004 Newcastle Herald

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