Voyage from shame: The Cowra breakout and afterwards

In the early morning of 5 August 1944, more than eleven hundred Japanese prisoners of war attempted to break out of their prison camp near the New South Wales town of Cowra. Two hundred and thirty -five died, including four Australians, and hundreds actually escaped. It was the largest prison break in history.At the time and for years afterwards, the facts of the affair were not disclosed. It became a kind of sleeping secret. The in the 1960's, Harry Gordon set out to discover the truth. The book that resulted, Die like the Carp!, published in 1978, was hailed as the definitive account of the incident. Now Harry Gordon has revisited the Cowra Breakout. When he began work on a new edition to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the incident, his intention was to revise and expand his earlier work. He has done much more than that, unearthing fresh truths and exploring new themes.