Around 2 a.m. on August 5, 1944, a Japanese man in distress climbed over a fence at the Cowra prisoner-of-war camp in New South Wales, Australia. He “was weeping and appeared to be in great fear,” an observer later recalled. A guard fired two shots to signal that something was amiss, but before he could investigate further, a bugle call pierced the night air. Suddenly, more than 900 prisoners stormed out of their huts, wielding baseball bats, gardening tools and cutlery as improvised weapons.
