A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
The Indian Army during World War II, a British force also referred to as the British Indian Army, began the war, in 1939, numbering just under 200,000 men. By the end of the war, it had become the largest volunteer army in history, rising to over 2.5 million men in August 1945. Serving in divisions of infantry, armour and a fledgling airborne force, they fought on three continents in Africa, Europe and Asia.
Cowra is a small town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia. It is the largest population centre and the council seat for the Cowra Shire, with a population of 9,863.
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war.
Rayene Stewart Simpson,, was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces. Simpson received his award for actions in Kon Tum Province, South Vietnam, on 6 May 1969.
Stalag Luft III was a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Western Allied air force personnel.
The Cowra Breakout occurred on 5 August 1944, when 1,104 Japanese prisoners of war escaped from a POW camp near Cowra, in New South Wales, Australia. It was the largest prison escape of World War II, as well as one of the bloodiest. During the escape and ensuing manhunt, four Australian soldiers were killed and 231 Japanese soldiers were killed or committed suicide. The remaining escapees were re-captured and imprisoned.
The following lists events that happened during 1944 in Australia.
Featherston prisoner of war camp was a camp for captured Japanese soldiers during World War II at Featherston, New Zealand, notorious for a 1943 incident in which 48 Japanese and one New Zealander were killed. The camp had been established during World War I as a military training camp and had also been used as an internment camp from 1918 to 1920, when 14 German internees remained there.
The Selarang Barracks incident, also known as the Barrack Square incident or the Selarang Square Squeeze, was a revolt of British and Australian prisoners-of-war (POWs) interned in a Japanese camp in Changi, Singapore.
Benjamin Gower Hardy, GC, known as Ben Hardy, was an Australian soldier who was posthumously awarded the George Cross for the gallantry he showed during the Cowra breakout, on 5 August 1944, when Japanese prisoners of war staged a mass escape from a prisoner-of-war camp at Cowra, New South Wales.
Major John Bigelow Dodge, also known as "the Artful Dodger", was an American-born British Army officer who fought in both world wars and became a notable prisoner of war during the Second World War, surviving the famous The Great Escape in March 1944.
During World War II, it was estimated that between 35,000 and 50,000 members of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces surrendered to Allied service members prior to the end of World War II in Asia in August 1945. Also, Soviet troops seized and imprisoned more than half a million Japanese troops and civilians in China and other places. The number of Japanese soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen who surrendered was limited by the Japanese military indoctrinating its personnel to fight to the death, Allied combat personnel often being unwilling to take prisoners, and many Japanese soldiers believing that those who surrendered would be killed by their captors.
Petty Officer Hajime Toyoshima was a Japanese airman in World War II. His A6M Zero was the first of that type to be recovered relatively intact on Allied territory when he crash landed on Melville Island, Northern Territory, Australia.
The Battle of Ratsua occurred during the Second World War and involved Australian and Japanese forces. Part of the wider Bougainville Campaign of the Pacific theatre, the battle took place in the northern sector of Bougainville between June and August 1945. The main forces that took part in the fighting were the Australian 23rd Brigade and the Japanese 87th Naval Garrison Force.
The Cowra Breakout is a 1984 Australian mini series based on the Cowra breakout, focusing on the friendship between an Australian soldier and Japanese prisoner.
Camp Victory, also known as Camp Casino, was a Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) base and prisoner of war camp, used during World War II, near Casino, New South Wales, Australia. The Dutch government-in-exile was given extraterritorial rights over the management and conduct of the base. It was named Camp Victory by the Dutch government in the hopes of a swift recapture of the Dutch East Indies. The camp consisted mostly of tents, with only a few buildings for administrative, ablutions and recreational purposes.
