Escape to Death: The Japanese Breakout at Cowra, 1944 by Hugh Clarke

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Sunning to title page and last page.

In the early hours during the moonlit morning of 5 August 1944, there was a mass outbreak of Japanese prisoners-of-war in the small country town of Cowra in New South Wales. It was the only event of its kind ever to take place on Australian soil - and one of the largest escape attempts in British military history.

The attempted flight to freedom was hopeless from the beginning. It ended with four Australians and 231 prisoners dead in the morning sunlight, with the remainder being soon rounded up on the rolling farmland surrounding Cowra.

For security reasons, very little was ever revealed of these events at the time - and this book, when originally published in 1965 as Break-Out, it was the first and only complete account, based on official and personal records. Now revised and updated, Escape to Death is the best and most authoritative account of this whole tragic episode. (back cover)