Blog Review: Loveday Internment Camps - Riverland South Australia

Macca, there's a paperback edition of Die like the Carp!, available on eBay Australia, plus there's 32 editions available from global booksellers on AbeBooks.com.

The Cowra Breakout was exceptionally violent, the Japanese were driven by the Bushido warrior code that it was better to die in enemy combatant action, than to go home in shame as a POW.

4 Australians were murdered in the breakout, and 251 Japanese died, many committing suicide after escaping and realising they were not going to be able to get away from Australian round-up efforts.

The camp was alerted by one Japanese POW who was apparently against the breakout, and who shouted a warning at 2:00AM, which alerted sentries, who fired shots.
Shortly after, a Japanese bugle sounded and the Japanese threw themselves on the barbed wire in a massive assault.

The hero of the breakout was Pte Ben Hardy who was manning a Vickers MG with his mate Ralph Jones.
Despite firing the MG into the wave of attacking Japanese, they were overwhelmed, and Hardy managed to rip the bolt from the Vickers and throw it away, thus rendering it unusable and preventing the Japanese from turning the MG on the Australians.

There were Internment Camps in every State of Australia, and more than one in some States.

List of WW2 POW Camps in Australia

In W.A., the Internment Camp was located at Harvey. It was called No. 11 POW camp.
They were also referred to as Alien Camps.
As the War started to wind down around mid 1944, the Harvey Camp was converted into a military training camp as well.
Then, in late 1946, the Harvey Camp was converted into a Rural Training Centre, to assist ex-servicemen to become farmers.

Harvey Alien Camp praised by Red Cross delegate - Sept 1941

OzAtWar - No 11 POW Camp - Harvey, W.A.

Italians recall Harvey Internment Camp - ABC article

Harvey Rural Training Centre report - 1947

Quite a number of the camp buildings deemed surplus, were sold off in 1946, as part of the War Surplus sales carried out by the Commonwealth Disposal Commission.

Harvey Camp huts bring big prices - 1946

The internees were sent to Rottnest Island initially, then the No. 11 Internee/POW Camp was built at Harvey, and the internees were then transferred there.
The largest percentage of the internees were not POW's, they were merely "aliens" who were unfortunate enough to have Italian, German or Japanese names, and were not naturalised Australian citizens.

There were possibly a few POW's in the Harvey Camp, but the majority were just local Italians.
The survivors of the "Kormoran", the German raider that sank HMAS Sydney, were interned in Harvey for a period, before being transferred to a POW Camp in Victoria.

Many internees and some Italian POW's were sent out to farms in the W.A. wheatbelt, to provide labour on an arrangement which operated like a work release from jail.

These people were deemed no threat as regards escape or criminality, and they provided very useful and willing labour for W.A. farmers, who were short on labour due to the War.
The vast majority of them were excellent workers, and just happy to be working productively, and out of the camps.
They were generally chosen if they spoke a smattering of understandable English. If they spoke no English at all, that meant it was unlikely they would be released for work purposes.

In fact, so many of these internees and POW's enjoyed the rural life in W.A. so much, that a sizeable number of them actually returned and purchased land in the W.A. wheatbelt after the War, and became very successful farmers.

Cheers, Ron.

Hi Ron

Yes that book was a great read and I read it many, many years ago when it was first published.

And speaking of POW’s.......

Right here in Clare, there were 4 Italian POW’s men who were doing farm labouring work. After the war, they were all sent back to Italy, but they loved Clare so much, they all returned with their wives and Clare was to become their new home, and they all become an important part of our community.

They all lived in the same street, and all within a few houses of each other, and that area of Clare was given the nickname “Little Italy”

The men and their wives have now all past away, except one man.

Cheers


Stephen

Stephen - The post-War Italian farming immigrants moved into the W.A. Wheatbelt in such numbers, the area S.E. of Hyden, is officially named "Little Italy"! [:-)

Little Italy, W.A.

Little Italy, W.A. - Australias guide

It's interesting to see that Little Italy, W.A. now only has a reported population of 13.
Such is the drain of people from country to the city, as farms get bigger and much more mechanised.

When I worked around Little Italy in the 1970's, the population would have been at least 50 or 60 people.
Yes, all the WW2 Italian migrants I knew are nearly all deceased.

My city neighbour, Barney is one of the post-WW2 migrants still going, he's 88, and still pretty fit.
They often joined up in big Italian woodcutting groups, after they arrived, it was one of the labouring occupations they could take on, without any skills.

Cheers, Ron.

Thanks Ron & Stephen,

Ron, I have heard of similar instances of Japanese American Internees in the US during WWII assisting with the war effort, but these were few and far between. The Japanese American Internees were generally treated poorly, and lived in pretty poor conditions.

Macca.