Add image. Top cast Edit. Peter Hehir Padre as Padre. Alex Broun Nobby as Nobby. David Sandford Curtis as Curtis. Luke Hobbs Athol as Athol. Tom Appleton Barnett as Barnett. Gerry Skilton Spud as Spud. Tony Benedict Smith Nugget as Nugget.
Malcolm Wilson G. Lee Rice G. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Add content advisory. By August there were 2, Japanese prisoners of war in Australia, including merchant seamen. Of these 1, were housed in Camp B of No. They were guarded by the 22 nd Garrison Battalion. On Friday 4 August, in response to information that the Japanese were discussing a mass outbreak, notice was given that all Japanese prisoners below the rank of Lance Corporal would be transferred to the Hay Prisoner of War Camp.
There was also an alcohol distillery where acetone was made from wheat for use in explosives and Edgells established a food processing plant to feed service personnel. Mr Whiteley, now 84 but still living and practising in Cowra, said the prisoner-of-war camp was set up to provide for Italians and Germans from the European war.
Interns were also taken there. The Italian prisoners, particularly, were willing and glad to be out of the western desert war. They enjoyed what Mr Whiteley described as the laissez faire or dolce farniente sweet do nothing life, with many of them actually working without supervision on farms, eating well and being able to flirt with women.
If a prisoner working outside the camp came home late and found the gates locked, he would bang and yell until a guard let him back inside. They had been captured mostly because of wounds or illness and just couldn't fight any more. We didn't understand their culture and we didn't make a great deal of effort to find out.
As a result little was known about what they were doing. The year before the Cowra breakout, Japanese prisoners took part in a riot at a camp in New Zealand. They stoned guards and then rushed them after staging a series of strikes and refusing to take part in parades. Forty-eight Japanese were killed and 63 wounded.
A New Zealand guard was killed and six others wounded. Mr Whiteley said the lead-up to the New Zealand riot was similar to what had been happening at Cowra. Very little else appears to have been done. The officers at the Cowra camp were mostly veterans from World War I and the guards people who were generally unfit for active service.
On his return to Australia in he became secretary of Maitland Show, then Maitland Jockey and Trotting clubs because of his love of horses. When the war started he was commanding officer of the Hunter River Lancers, also known as the 16th Machine-Gun Regiment. He was given the Cowra job in and apparently wore riding breeches most of the time and sometimes rode around on a horse. Mr Whiteley said that early on the morning of August 5, Cowra electrician Theo Green arrived at his home with men on a truck.
The camp was on fire and in darkness. I have to protect their position and if necessary can you enlist them? If you don't you can get off the truck and go home and no-one will know. He said 'yes' and he had alerted the volunteer defence corps to protect sub-stations, bridges and other places in Cowra. He also called out all the council staff. With this fresh perspective, Keneally returned again to the breakout in with Shame and the Captives which is set in the town of Gawell, a fictionalised version of Cowra.
Keneally said in his introduction that now, rather than drawing on his faulty memories of childhood, he spent considerable time researching the historical event which informs his work. His reimagining included explorations of Italian and Korean POWs who were also held at Cowra, but whose stories are often overlooked. Her work Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms provides an Indigenous voice to the history of Cowra, a voice that has often been silenced in accounts of Australian history.
Issues of race, discrimination and loyalty take on a new sense of urgency in this wartime setting, yet also highlight that while much has changed in the last 75 years, so much has stayed the same. From this bloody chapter of history, the township of Cowra — today, a four hour drive inland from Sydney — has moved forward to promote itself as a beacon of peace, friendship, and understanding.
Read more: Love in the time of racism: 'Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms' explores the politics of romance. In a show of respect for the dead, the Cowra RSL Sub-branch cared for the Japanese burial ground informally until eventually the graves were relocated to what is now the Cowra Japanese War Cemetery, which opened in The gardens and the cemetery were symbolically linked by an avenue of cherry blossoms in , and in Cowra was awarded further recognition to its peace efforts with The Australian World Peace Bell.
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