The Cowra Breakout (1984)

               “The Cowra Breakout” is an Australian miniseries about the Japanese breakout from a prisoner of war camp on New South Wales in 1944.  The first episode has the main character, Private Davidson (Alan David Lee) at war on New Guinea. His patrol runs into  a Japanese machine gun nest. Most of the patrol is wiped out, including his best buddy who is mortally wounded and put out of his misery by Davidson. Their leader, Lt. MacDonald (Andrew Lloyde) runs and leaves Davidson behind. Davidson ends up as a guard at Camp Cowra. In a major coincidence, Murphy’s widow and two daughters live near the camp. They strike up a romance. He is surprised to find the surviving Japanese soldier, Hiyashi (Junichi Ishida) is in the camp. At first, Davidson is bitter towards the man who killed his friend and not sympathetic towards the other prisoners. He is very perturbed when Lt. MacDonald is assigned to the camp and he’s wearing a medal for bravery! MacDonald refuses to admit to stolen valor. At first, the Japanese in the camp are docile, but this changes when a bushido believer arrives and roils the barracks with talk of fighting back. He convinces a majority of the men that to return home after being prisoners will be disgraceful. They must rise up and die fighting.

               SPOILER:  “The Cowra Breakout” is based on an actual prison break, although all of the characters are fictional. The breakout is accurately depicted. The prisoners broke out on the night of August 5, 1944. It started with Hajime Toyoshima, the first Japanese prisoner taken by the Australians in WWII, blowing a bugle. A prisoner tried to  warn the guards, but the mob managed to break through the fence. They were armed with knives, bats, and clubs. Two soldiers, Privates Benjamin Hardy and Ralph Jones tried to hold them back with a machine gun, but they were overrun and killed. They received the George Cross. 359 of the 1,104 prisoners escaped. 231 of them ending up dying either from gunfire or suicide. Four Aussie troops died. All of the escaped prisoners were recovered. It was the largest and bloodiest prison escape in WWII.

               The miniseries is small scale, but sincere. Although the characters are fictional they certainly represented typical guards and prisoners. It was interesting to see how the original prisoners were content with serving out the war in a prison camp. The guards grew complacent because these prisoners offered no problems. The commander treated the prisoners well. The miniseries gives no indication that the prisoners were rebelling because of mistreatment. It may be a bit simplistic to blame it all on one fanatical prisoner, but it seems reasonable that the later prisoners would have been more hardcore since they would have been fighting longer. The relationship between Davidson and MacDonald is interesting and not predictable. On the other hand, Davidson’s friendship with Hiyashi is trite. The romance is obviously thrown in for the female audience. The acting is solid from a cast none of whom I recognized. Alan David Lee is fine as a soldier who overcomes his PTSD to find the humanity he lost when his best friend was killed. Junichi Ishida does a good job as a prisoner who feels it is best to live to return to his loved ones. But that philosophy conflicts with Japanese martial culture. He gets caught up in the inevitable banzai charge at the gate.

               Australia has a strong track record for war movies and miniseries. “The Cowra Breakout” is somewhere in the middle. It gets credit for covering a famous event in the war and sticking to the basic facts. It’s a bit melodramatic, but that is to be expected from a television miniseries.

GRADE  =  B-