5.7 Internment of ‘enemy aliens’
aliens: until 1949 there was
no Australian citizenship.
Legally Australians —
either native born or
naturalised — were British
subjects. You became a
British subject simply
by being born in any of
the British Colonies or
Dominions (Australia and
Canada were ‘Dominions’).
Anyone else was an alien.
internment: the practice
of keeping people under
guard in a speciﬁc area,
particularly during wartime
As soon as war broke out in 1939 many Australians feared that foreign residents from
countries Australia was at war with might act as spies or carry out sabotage activities. In
order to monitor these people, the Alien Registrations Act 1939 was passed. Speciﬁed
aliens had to register with their local police and get permission to travel, and they
needed a permit to have radios, binoculars or even carrier pigeons.
This Act applied ﬁrst to those born in Germany but as the war widened it included
Italians (June 1940), Japanese (December 1941) and even Indonesians. The government
established internment camps to hold these ‘enemy aliens’. The number of residents
imprisoned reached a peak in September 1942 with over 7000 people being distributed
over 18 camps. Many of the Germans interned had been sent out from England and over
half of these were German Jews.
From the end of 1943 the main use of the camps was for captured prisoners of war.
The largest group of these (14 720) were Italians captured in the Middle East campaign
(see pages 172–3), and the rest were made up mainly of Japanese (2223) and Germans
(1585).
After some time the Italians were not seen as a serious threat. Many had not been
willing soldiers in the ﬁrst place. They often worked on farms outside the camps.
However, the Japanese were not as willing to accept defeat (see source 5.43), and in 1944
staged a breakout in a camp in Cowra.
SOURCE 5.40 Photograph of two families of German internees taken in Tatura Internment
Camp in northern Victoria in March 1945. Parents on the left are Ewald and Anna Glenk and the
parents on the top right are Irmgard and Gunther Baden.
AWM 030242/13
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 Deduce why a number was included when the photo in source 5.40 was taken.
2 Do you think these internees have been treated well? Give reasons for your answer.
3 On the Australian War Memorial website (www.awm.gov.au) go to ‘Collections’ and search for
Tatura and World War II. There are many photos of the camp there. Identify the photos you would
have chosen to give an accurate picture of the camp. Why?
CHAPTER 5
| Australia and World War II
191
SOURCE 5.41
Photograph of Australian
soldiers marching
a large group of
Japanese internees
to a prison camp
SOURCE QUESTIONS
1 In source 5.41, explain what the shadows indicate about the time of the day.
2 Why might this be relevant in understanding the treatment of prisoners in inland Australia?
3 Do the soldiers seem concerned about security? Use evidence from the photo to support
your answer.
SOURCE 5.42
Photograph of Italian
prisoners of war at the
Liverpool Internment
Camp in New South
Wales, 1945. The camp
sold ﬁrewood and the
internees worked in
timber cutting as well
as blacksmith work
and farming.
AWM 123717
SOURCE 5.43 An ofﬁcer of the garrison guarding the Japanese at Cowra wrote as follows.
Geneva Convention: an
international agreement
on the conduct of war,
especially on the role of the
Red Cross and the treatment
of prisoners of war
They [the Japanese] did not understand the Articles of the Geneva Convention . . . and our
strict adherence to its terms merely amused them and further convinced them of our moral and
spiritual weakness. They read into our humane treatment of them a desire to placate them, and
this they felt sprang from our secret fear of them.
www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/cowra/doc.htm
SOURCE QUESTION
Compare the conditions of the photos in sources 5.40, 5.41 and 5.42 with those of the Australians in
Japanese prisoner-of-war camps (see pages 185–6). What are the signiﬁcant differences?
192
Retroactive 2
The Cowra breakout
SOURCE 5.44
A photograph taken near
the perimeter wires on
the morning after the
Cowra breakout
The prisoner-of-war camp near rural Cowra was roughly circular in shape, with a
diameter of about 700 metres. There was one compound in each of the four segments
of the circle, with broad open spaces between them. The Italians were in compounds A
and C. Japanese ofﬁcers, with some Korean and Formosan (Taiwanese) prisoners were
in Compound D, and Japanese non-commissioned ofﬁcers and junior ranks were in
Compound B. The uprising took place in Compound B.
The camp was considered safe because it was surrounded by three rows of
barbed-wire fences and had six tall guard towers around the perimeter. However, by
June 1944 the camp was becoming crowded and a Korean prisoner leaked news of a
possible breakout. Two Vickers machine guns were brought in and a decision was made
to move the Japanese in Compound B further south to Hay.
The announcement of this decision prompted the Japanese prisoners in Compound B
to act and around 2.00 am on Saturday 5 August 1944 the plans for the breakout were
put into action. They divided into four groups: two to storm the perimeter fences, one to
attempt to link up with the ofﬁcers in
Compound D, and one to storm the
gates. Two privates who manned a
machine gun were overwhelmed by
the numbers and killed, but Private
Ralph Jones was able to disable the
gun so that the Japanese could not
use it against the Australians.
Of about 1000 prisoners, 334
managed to escape and it took nine
days to recover them all. Many of
the prisoners committed suicide
rather than be recaptured. Two threw
themselves under a train and many
hanged themselves. A total of 231
Japanese were killed and 108 injured.
Four Australians were killed and
four injured. The Japanese kept their
promise not to injure any civilians.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
AWM 044172
1 From source 5.44 and the text, identify security measures that were in place in the Cowra
prisoner of war camp.
2 Why had blankets been thrown across the wire?
ACTIVITIES
Describe means state what
something is like.
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
1 Explain why the Alien Registration Act was introduced in 1939.
2 List the nationalities that were deﬁned as ‘aliens’ between 1939 and the end of 1941.
Why were these nationalities chosen?
3 Describe how the use of internment camps changed after 1943.
4 What was the largest group of prisoners of war? Where had they been captured?
5 Where would the German prisoners of war have been captured?
6 What were the Japanese and Australian casualties in the Cowra breakout?
7 Explain why so many of the Japanese escapees committed suicide rather than be
recaptured after the Cowra breakout.
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