Cowra breakout The Cowra breakout occurred on August 5 , 1944 , when at least 545 Japanese prisoners of war escaped from a camp near Cowra , in New South Wales , Australia . It was one of the largest prison escape s of World War II , as well as one of the bloodiest . During the ensuing manhunt , four Australian soldiers and 231 Japanese soldiers were killed . The remaining escapees were captured and sent back to prison . POW camp . Cowra , a farming district , 314 km due west of Sydney , was the town nearest to No . 12 Prisoner of War Compound , a major POW camp , where 4 , 000 Axis military personnel and civilians were detained . The prisoners at Cowra also included 2 , 000 Italians , Koreans who had served in the Japanese military , and Indonesia n civilians detained at the request of the Dutch East Indies government . By August 1944 , there were 2 , 223 Japanese POWs in Australia , including 544 merchant seamen . There were also 14 , 720 Italian prisoners , who had been captured mostly in the North African Campaign , and 1 , 585 Germans , mostly naval or merchant seamen . Although the POWs were treated in accordance with the 1929 Geneva Convention , relations between the Japanese POWs and the guards were poor , due largely to significant cultural differences . A riot by Japanese POWs at Featherston prisoner of war camp in New Zealand , in February 1943 , led to security being tightened at Cowra . Eventually several Vickers and Lewis machine gun s were installed to augment the rifle s carried by the members of the Australian Militia ' s 22nd Garrison Battalion , which was composed mostly of old or disabled veterans or young men considered physically unfit for frontline service . Breakout . In the first week of August 1944 , a tip - off from an informer at Cowra led authorities to plan a move of all Japanese POWs at Cowra , except officers and NCO s , to another camp at Hay , New South Wales , some 400 km to the west . The Japanese were notified of the move on 4 August . In the words of historian Gavin Long , the following night : The bugler , Hajime Toyoshima , had been Australia ’ s first Japanese prisoner of the war . Soon afterwards , most of the buildings in the Japanese compound were set on fire . Within minutes of the start of the breakout attempt Privates Benjamin Gower Hardy and Ralph Jones ( GC ) manned the No . 2 Vickers machine - gun and were firing into the first wave of escapees , but they were soon overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers and killed . However , Private Jones managed to remove and hide the gun ' s bolt before he died . This rendered the gun useless , thereby preventing the prisoners from turning it against the guards . The actions of the Japanese POWs in storming machine gun posts , armed only with improvised weapons , showed what Australian Prime Minister John Curtin later described as a " suicidal disregard of life " . Nevertheless , 359 POWs escaped . Some prisoners , rather than escaping , attempted or committed suicide , or were killed by their countrymen . Some of those who did escape committed suicide , or were killed , to avoid recapture . All those still alive were recaptured within 10 days of the breakout . During the escape and subsequent round - up of POWs , four Australian soldiers and 231 Japanese soldiers died and 108 prisoners were wounded . The leaders of the breakout commanded their escapees not to attack Australian civilians , and none were killed or injured . The findings of an official inquiry into the events were read to the Australian House of Representatives by Curtin on 8 September 1944 . Among its findings were : Hardy and Jones were posthumous ly awarded the George Cross as a result of their actions . No . 12 Camp continued to operate until the last Japanese and Italian prisoners were repatriated in 1947 . Cowra maintains a significant Japanese war cemetery , and a Japanese garden was later built , on Bellevue Hill , to commemorate these events . The garden was designed by Ken Nakajima in the style of the Edo period .