Japanese war graves and POW camp

This War Grave Cemetry was right next to the Australian War Graves.  Such an emotional place.  When you walk in the signage lets you know that some of these people who were interned at the POW camp were 2nd and 3rd generation Australian born, so actually there were more Australian than I am.  All because of the colour of their skin they became POWs, so sad.  Hopefully we have now moved on from doing things like this.   This tree was planted by Japanese prince in 1971 when he came to visit Cowra.  All along the road on the way to the Japanese POW camp and the gardens there are trees with plaques under them like this with peoples names on them.  Mostly 1 Japanese and 1 Australian joining together for peace.

Japanese war graves

walkway covered with lovely trees

Australian War graves

The walkway between the 2 sections

what is left of the hut they slept in.  One cheeky story I heard was that the work crew used to go out each day and one fella would go missing, the guard when asked if he was worried 

he replied "no, he will be back for the trip home" and each day the POW would return in time to go back to the camp.  Apparently, he had a girlfriend in town.

I thought the camp only housed people that were already in Australia, turns out they shipped POWs from other countries here to Australia to house them in Cowra.  Bloody long way.

The POW camp was huge.  Not only were there Japanese but other nationalities that were considered "enemy"