Wieneke Archive Book 4j : War Presscuttings

FRIDAY, SEPTEMRFR 29, 1978 It was the greatest, goriest prison break in military history - and it happened in Australia. It began with a bugle call and screams of "Banzai!" Then hundreds of Japanese prisoners burst to temporary freedom, with a traditional call to bravery ringing in their ears . ON that cold August morning of 1944 the township of Cowra in outback New South Wales was slumbering In peaceful anonymity when the blare of a bugle and hoarse screams of "Banzai!" suddenly transformed it into the scene of the greatest, goriest prison -break in milit- ary history. In the feverish wake of that first -light eruption on August. 5, 231 Japanese prisoners of war and four Australian soldiers died violently, 107 Japanese and four Australians were wounded and 334 prisoners crashed through to tem- porary freedom. Within nine days, 25 of the escapees were dead and the remainder rounded up by soldiers, police and pos- ses of local farmers. Bullet - riddled, burnt and mangled corpses ravished the Idyllic rustic setting. What gave this astound- ing episode a further ele- ment of fantasy was an of- ficial cloak of such secrecy that even the award of George Crosses for valor to two of the dead Australians was not announced until about seven years later. Inquest Incredibly also, the ft:M- inim of a coroner's inquest into the 235 deaths were never made public. nor the fort that the only surviving Japanese ringleader was subsequently tried for mur- der. Seldom before could a true story of such horrific Impact hare taken so long to be told in its entirety. For award -winning au- thor Harry Gordon. whose curiosity had focused and fermented on this bizarre happening since he was an 1 8-y e a r -o I d Air Force rookie, and who had spas- modically pieced fragments of it together from time to time, the final spur was discovering the where- abouts of that prison -break ringleader, Ak.r a Kane - saws. 'This was the trigger," he relates. "I had studied all the records of that last, doomed bannal chant's. talked with just about ev- eryone else involved in it...even the hit players like the doctor who exam- ined all those corpses, the priest who performed the last rites, the coroner who conducted the civil inquest. t he aentries who had guarded the prisoners. the farmers who had pursued the escapees, the relatives of those who had died. "Trackingclown and talking with Akira Kana- zawa on his family farm 200 km out of Tokyo," he adds, "was for me the last. Important piece in the whole bloody jigsaw." The outcome, after all these Intervening years. is DIE LIKE THE CARP! dramatic narrative of history in which Mr. Gor- don encapsulates the whole shattering Cowra Incident complete with graphic eye- witness accounts and vivid, sometimes jolting pictures "Die Like The Carp" (Cassell Australia - 59.951 will be launched by the De- fence Minister IMr. Klllesi at the Lazar Restaurant in King Street, Melbourne, on Monday. The title is a story in it- self. Says Mr. Gordon: "I had spoken to dozens of the Japanese who took part in that riot. It was Seiji Gel, a former hut leader, who summed up best the mood of the young prisoners who made that maddened, sui- cidal charge at the barbed wire. "I told my men lo die like the carp," he said to me. " 'We talked a lot In the minutes while we waited for that bugle call, and told them about the spirit. the bravery of the carp which we Japanese have traditionally held in rever- ence. " 'I told them about the way it battles against on- rushing currents, the way the carp even swims up waterfalls. I told them and anyway they knew it well - that the carp was a symbol of a fine Japanese boy, that the true Japanese has to be able to light and finally die like the carp.' Doomed 'Then Seiji added quite simply: 'I knew there was no chance that we tsmild win this battle ahead, and that most of these young men would he dead very some." It Alta the mystery as much as the inumi-sits of this doomed hut chsperate escape attempt that clung like a sliver while Mr. Gor- don was producing other books on other topics. Ms "An Eyewitness His - tor)' of Australia" won the Fellowship of Australian Writers award in 1077 for the best Australian book of quality writing first price n the National Bonk Council of Australia an- nual awards, and later in that year the Shell Oil Company's major book award. His four previous publi- cations were "Young Men In A Hurry", 'The Embar- rassing Australian" (the story of Reg Saunders, the By KENNETH JOACHIM first Aborigine to become an officer in the ALF), "Gold Medal Girl" (the Dawn Fraser story), and "Famous Australian News Pictures." A journalist since 1044, Harry Gordon has been re- porter, columnist, sports writer, war correspondent during the bitterest fight- ing of 1950-51 in Korea and 1960 in Algeria, foreign correspondent based in London, and editor of The Melbourne Sun before his present appointment as ex- ecutive editor of the Herald and Weekly Times. This background of n e w a -gathering accounts for his persistence in pur- suing all the facts about Cowra - despite the trations. Silence In the beginning, many flatly refused to talk. Oth- ers were wary even to the extent of tearing off "se- cret" and "confidential" la- bels from documents they passed to him. It took considerable cor- respor.dence r i 1 cajolery with people ranging from the then Prime Minister Menzies and Defence Min- ister Hasluck to the acting official war historian, and much to-and-frolng be- tween Melbourne, Canberra and Tokyo to pan those first glints of Information. Finally, en route to a war correspondents reunion in Korea, came that 200 km trek out of Tokyo to the six -hectare family holding being farmed by former es- cape ringleader Akira "We sat on a tataml floor." Mr. Gordon recalls, "beneath portraits of Kanazawa's mother, his fa- ther, and his kamikaze pi- lot brother Ktitsuji, who died in 01w of the last nits- mons of the war We were watched by brothers end sisters, cousins, aunts, un- cles and lots of children." A train strike which pa- ralysed transport out of Tokyo was overcome by Greg Lund, an officer with the economic and political division at the Australian Embassy there, and a for- mer Brisbane journalist. Lund spoke fluent Japa- nese. drove Gordon to his rendezvous with Kanazawa and acted as his inter- preter. Says Mr. Gordon: "T showed Kanazawa pictures and maps, read hint ex- tracts nom the report of the court of inquiry. told hint some of the things his comrades had told me. And be began to talk ..." Shame And in that fascinating flashback the mysteries were gradually unravelled one of them. why those prisoners courted death with such careless rapture "The shame of capture nos unbearable." the es- cape ringleader told anther riardoit "(Slur contentions, au, it,. 10. it-. Are different. v Looking back objectively, author Gordon observes: "Whether the massive, vio- lent collision that occurred there should ever have been allowed to take place is something about which the reader will have to make up his own mind. "My own view, through the comfortable focus of hindsight, is that it shouldn't. "What is easier to criti- cise is the guilty, almost ludicrous secrecy with which the Australian Go- vernment surrounded the affair for far too long." Time has cleansed Cows of the ugly occasion, muted the dreadful cacophony of bugle blasts, banal screams, burning huts and scything bullets. In their place is a se- renely beautiful Japanese cemetery shaded by eu- calypts. wattles and cherry blossoms in avenues trod by relatives and survivors who come on pilgrimage to this place. They see the camp site now marked by a carrier, and reflect upon the epi- taphs, one of which Mr. Gordon wishes that Seig Ogi could have seen. t reads: "Wounded POWs showed remarkable stoicism, and although the seriously and even mortally wounded lay for hours where they fell, not a sound from them was heard." Why Seiji Ogi? "Because it was the ultimate Judg- ment -- that short, flat testimony from an enemy - on the young men to whom he lectured, and the others who rushed from the huts that night. "It demonstrated one thing beyond doubt. They really did die like the carp". Harry Gordon'a in- exorable quest and sensi- tive portrayal of why and how this came to pass is in the finest traditions of painstaking, fact-finding, Illuminating journalism. At its best and even its very worst, what happened at Cowra now becomes a compelling, breath -taking story. T' 4- 4 have' "The best extra m smokin'deal ever in A "Now J you're extra mild smokers c incredible value of Winfield Twentyfive greatWinfield smokes tc same price you're payin' for those c of twenties. Now there's five extra buyin' Winfields in the blue the best extra mild smokin' deal or ...anyhow have a Winfield