75th Anniversary of the Cowra Breakout PDF Download

Author: Cowra Breakout 75th Anniversary Committee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Concentration camp escapes
Languages : en
Pages : 14

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Author: Mat McLachlan
Publisher: Hachette Australia
ISBN: 0733647634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
The riveting story of the missing piece of Australia's World War II history, told by bestselling historian Mat McLachlan (Walking with the Anzacs, Gallipoli: The Battlefield Guide). During World War II, in the town of Cowra in central New South Wales, Japanese prisoners of war were held in a POW camp. By August 1944, over a thousand were interned and on the icy night of August 5th they staged one of the largest prison breakouts in history, launching the only land battle of World War II to be fought on Australian soil. Five Australian soldiers and more than 230 Japanese POWs would die during what became known as The Cowra Breakout. This compelling and fascinating book, written by one of Australia's leading battlefield historians, vividly traces the full story of the Breakout. It is a tale of proud warriors and misfit Australian soldiers. Of negligence and complacency, and of authorities too slow to recognise danger before it occurred - and too quick to cover it up when it was too late. But mostly it is a story about raw human emotions, and the extremes that people will go to when they feel all hope is lost.

Author: Graham Apthorpe
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1922265640
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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"Graham Apthorpe’s account of the Cowra outbreak is superb. Narrated in a fresh way, in elegant and original prose, and with a wonderful gift for taking the unexpected angle, it does great service to this astonishing Australian-Japanese event, and will have a honoured place in the canon of fascinating works on the incident." - Thomas Keneally The War in the Pacific has turned; thousands of the previously invincible Japanese soldiers are now being captured in New Guinea and interned at the Cowra Prisoner of War Camp. Unlike other POWs, the traditional Japanese Bushido Code and their fanaticism leaves them ill-equipped for surrender and imprisonment. Ashamed, subdued and sullen, one man, Second Lieutenant Maseo Naka is an exception. Obstructing the Australian authorities at every turn, he was the first Japanese soldier to escape from Cowra. This action becomes the precursor for the more than 1000 Japanese prisoners who escape in the bloodiest Breakout of World War II that ultimately saw 234 Japanese and four Australian guards killed. His escape and the defiance, guilt, and shame that motivated it, led to his court-martial. Naka nevertheless stands-out as very human, another tragic victim of the global inferno that was World War II. Adhering to the Samurai Code of Bushido, he doggedly undertakes actions that he views as necessary for the maintenance of his “honour”. Through the insights of those around Naka, together with new research including the personal accounts of Australian interrogators, the author shows how this handsome loner provided the impetus for the dramatic events in the early hours of August 5, 1944 where hundreds of Japanese soldiers stormed the Camp defences for honour, or death!

Author: Michael Tyquin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1925675084
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Highlands to Deserts is the story of a small Australian Army engineering unit determined to use more than bricks and bridges to make a difference, not only to Australian Army units but to indigenous communities both within Australia and overseas. The 19th Chief Engineer Works was raised in 1963 as the Army’s premier engineering consultant, its purpose to plan, design and oversee the construction of barracks and training facilities in the New Guinea highlands. However the men of the unit demonstrated vision far beyond their limited brief, reaching into local communities and building relationships with tribesmen that were to prove strong and enduring. From the wilds of New Guinea, the unit extended its reach to the remote communities of outback Australia, designing infrastructure that reflected local needs. The engineers engaged with indigenous townships, cementing relationships as they planned essential infrastructure, their sole aim to make a difference to local lives. The unit’s military remit ranged from designing bridges and wharfs to training facilities and even churches. The story of the 19th Chief Engineer Works, its people and its achievements, deserves to be far better known and Highlands to Deserts provides rich portrayals of the characters and the trials and tribulations that signpost their history. These are men and women who have invested in communities, large and small, near and far, seeking to improve the daily lives of soldiers and indigenous peoples. Having worked quietly in the background for 55 years, it is now time to tell the story of the 19th Chief Engineer Works.

Author: Peter Williams
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
ISBN: 1526796139
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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‘I had no qualms fighting the Australians, just as I have killed without remorse any of the Emperor’s enemies: the British, the Americans and the Dutch’, so admits Takahiro Sato in this ground-breaking oral history of Japan’s Pacific War. Thanks to years of research and over 100 interviews with veterans, the Author has compiled a fascinating collection of personal accounts by former Japanese soldiers, sailors and airmen. Their candid views are often provocative and shocking. There are admissions of brutality, the killing of prisoners and cannibalism. Stark descriptions of appalling conditions and bitter fighting blend with descriptions of family life. Their views on the prowess of the enemy differ with some like air ace Kazuo Tsunoda who believed the Australians ‘worthy’. Some remain unrepentant while others such as Hideo Abe are ashamed of his part in Japan’s war of aggression. The result is a revealing insight into the minds of a ruthless and formidable enemy which provides the reader with a fresh perspective on the Second World War.

Author: Peter Monteath
Publisher: Wakefield Press
ISBN: 9781743058961
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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The first English translation of Miyakatsu Koike's wartime diary, which documents his arrest and internment in South Australia's Loveday Camp, and his return to a war-ravaged Japan.

Author: Hugo Grotius
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : International law
Languages : la
Pages : 48

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Author: Bill Gammage
Publisher: ANU E Press
ISBN: 1925021653
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Hank Nelson was an academic, film-maker, teacher, graduate supervisor and university administrator. His career at The Australian National University (ANU) spanned almost 40 years of notable accomplishment in expanding and deepening our understanding of the history and politics of Papua New Guinea, the experience of Australian soldiers at war, bush schools and much else. This book is a highly readable tribute to him, written by those who knew him well, including his students, and also contains wide-ranging works by Hank himself. –Professor Stewart Firth, ANU.

Author: James C. McNaughton
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 9780160867057
Category : Japanese Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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"This book tells the story of an unusual group of American soldiers in World War II, second-generation Japanese Americans (Nisei) who served as interpreters and translators in the Military Intelligence Service."--Preface.

Author: Harry Gordon
Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press
ISBN: 9780702226281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
From overwhelming shame to a sense of pride - that many former Japanese prisoners have undergone. In doing so, it makes a contribution to history, to understanding, and to reconciliation.