The Ambassador of Japan to Australia Shingo Yamagami and Japanese Consul General Mr Masahiko Kiya visited Cowra on Friday to mark the 78th anniversary of the Cowra Breakout.
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Mr Yamagami and Mr Kiya were among Australian and Japanese dignitaries who attended ceremonies at the Cowra POW Campsite, the Australian and Japanese War cemeteries to mark the occasion.
Wreath laying ceremonies were held at both cemeteries with wreaths laid by the mayor of Cowra Bill West, Ambassador Yamagami, Consul-General Kiya along with the Cowra Breakout Association, Cowra schools and Cowra groups with close links to Japan.
The Australian War cemetery commemorates those who died in training at the Cowra Military camp as well as the five Australian soldiers, Private Ralph Jones GC, Private Benjamin Gower-Hardy GC, Private Charles Henry Shepherd, Lt Harry Doncaster and Sgt Thomas Hancock who died during or as a result of injuries sustained during the Cowra Breakout.
Cowra's Japanese War cemetery contains the remains of all Japanese nationals who died in the Cowra Breakout, the attacks on Darwin and other Australian interment and POW camps.
The cemetery came about after Japanese Embassy officials, in 1962, approached Cowra to discuss the possibility of one cemetery for all the war dead who had died on Australian soil.
The cemetery, designed by Shigeru Yura, was built in 1964.
Proceedings ended with a Buddhist ceremony at the Japanese War cemetery performed by Rev James Wilson of the Tetsuyu-Amida-ji Jodoshu Temple in Brisbane.
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