Cowra

Cowra is a town that is located about 310 kilometers away from Sydney. It is a compact and tidy community with a population of about 8207. It enjoys success as a historical town, and it is home to one of the most massive prison escape attempts in history. Cowra used to be a Prisoner Of War (POW) camp for captured Japanese and Italian soldiers. The italians were pleased with the sunny land and being removed from the roars of gunfire and the scream of bombers, and so they sttled in quite nicely. However, the Japanese were the complete opposite. They felt immense shame at their capture and refused to cooperate. In August 1944, 1100 of the Japanese POWs staged a suicidal escape attempt. They stormed the machine-gun emplacements and tried to make a break for it; However, the plan failed horribly, and by the end of the day, the POWs suffered 231 KIAs and 112 WIAs. Four Australian guards died during the breakout. It is regarded as one of the most suicidal and fruitless escape attempts in WWII. The farthest any of them got was 15 miles away.