World War II lasted for six years, during which 61 countries and regions and more than 2 billion people were involved in the war, and countries built countless prisoner-of-war camps for the purpose of holding prisoners of other countries. During this period, there were countless escapes of prisoners of war, such as the famous prison escape from the prisoner-of-war camp in Stalaglovt, Poland, where the prisoners dug three tunnels on a large scale, and finally 76 prisoners escaped from the prison through the tunnels, although most of them were chased back, but 3 of the prisoners still managed to escape.
This was not the largest escape, the most high-profile and involved during World War II occurred in a small town called Cowlan in New South Wales, Australia, where a huge prisoner-of-war camp was built to hold prisoners from axis powers such as Italy, North Korea and Japan, totaling about 20,000 people.
Japanese prisoners of war were co-imprisoned in The Second Camp of Kaoran, the first of whom was named Toshima Kazumi, who was also the leader of the escape. He was only 22 years old, a pilot, and since then the camp has included about 1,100 Japanese soldiers, all of whom followed to take the lead of Toshima, the first to be imprisoned.
Australia did not treat prisoners of war badly, they abided by international conventions, did not abuse, did not scold, did not withhold, these prisoners of war only need to do some daily work such as cutting down trees, and even have a variety of recreational activities during the wind time. Australia also pays special attention to the people of the island countries when it comes to eating, preparing them with fresh fish.
But these Japanese prisoners of war were not at peace, on the one hand, they followed the spirit of Bushido and thought that being captured was an extremely humiliating thing, and on the other hand, they did not treat Australian prisoners of war well, so they always suspected that Australia would finally settle the account on them. Under such pressure, the prisoners of war continued to stir until August 1944, when the news of Australia's decision to transfer prisoners of war completely broke the last nerve of the Japanese prisoners of war.
In fact, Australia did not want to take this opportunity to do anything, but the Cowlan prison was too crowded to hold so many prisoners, so it built a new prison. In the eyes of the Japanese, Australia either wanted to execute them secretly or to break up their original sense of unity.
At this time, As soon as Toshima stood up, he decided to lead the prisoners of war to escape bravely, and the way they escaped was extremely simple and rude, that is, to rush straight out. That's right, Toshima led more than 1,000 Japanese prisoners of war, and on the night of August 5, the soldiers rushed in three directions outside the camp, using the flesh and blood of the people in front of them as shields, crushing the bullets strafed from the machine guns with a number of them.
This method is very effective, that is, there are a lot of casualties, and although the two guards guarding the gate are protected by machine guns, they cannot stop the riots of a thousand people, and they are quickly engulfed by the prisoners of war who carry weapons such as fruit knives and sticks, and finally die under siege. The Japanese prisoners suffered even heavier casualties, with 231 dead, 108 seriously wounded, and 545 fleeing.
However, escaping from the prisoner-of-war camp did not mean victory, and soon the prisoners of war who escaped from prison were dumbfounded, because Kaulan was a desolate Gobi plain, with no mountains and no trees, and no place to hide. In just one night, most of the fleeing prisoners of war were captured, and some did not return because they chose to commit suicide in despair.
In the end, this vigorous escape from prison was declared a failure, no one successfully escaped from Kaolan, and Toshima, as the mastermind, also chose to commit suicide, and the militaristic spirit that the Japanese army believed in could not be defeated finally ended in a dismal situation.