Cowra is a town which hides an eventful wartime past in the peaceful tranquillity of its famous Japanese Gardens. The site of the infamous ‘Cowra Breakout', the town has gradually healed the gaping wounds of its World War 2 role. Situated three hundred and thirty kilometres south-west of Sydney, the Cowra of the 1940s was a typical middle-sized Australian town, with a population of around three thousand people. At that time, Cowra was the site of a major prisoner of war camp which held mostly Japanese and Italian prisoners. The majority of the Italians had been captured in the Middle East, while the Japanese had been fighting in and around the islands immediately north of Australia.
The prisoner of war camp was huge, covering an area of over thirty hectares. It was almost circular in shape and divided into four separate compounds by two, seven-hundred-metre long thoroughfares, known respectively as ‘No Man's Land' (which ran approximately east-west) and ‘Broadway'. Broadway, so called because of its bright lights at night, was used as an access road, as it ran in a north-south direction.
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