The Cowra Breakout (miniseries)

The Cowra Breakout is a 1984 Australian mini series based on the Cowra breakout, focusing on the friendship between an Australian soldier and Japanese prisoner. Plot November 1942. A unit of inexperienced Australian soldiers arrives at the frontlines in New Guinea as Allied troops drive back the crumbling Japanese forces. One is private Stan Davidson, eager but naive. The newcomers soon receive some harsh lessons in the realities of warfare as they and their US allies encounter the savage and fanatical Japanese. Nervous young Lieutenant MacDonald leads Davidson's section on a patrol and they come across the remains of a Catholic mission, where two Japanese soldiers, the only survivors of their unit, are slowly starving to death in a concealed bunker, but able to surprise the Australians with machine-gun fire. MacDonald flees in terror, abandoning his men, most of whom are wiped out by booby-traps and machine-gun fire, leaving only Davidson and Mick Murphy alive, sheltering in a ditch. Davidson returns fire, killing one of the Japanese but the other, Junji Hayashi, pins the two Australians down with his machine-gun. Murphy is badly wounded and in agony and a distraught Davidson chooses to shoot his mate to end his suffering. Hayashi finally emerges from the bunker and makes a screaming Banzai charge, is shot by Davidson and falls wounded. The furious Davidson bayonets him, then topples the cross from the church roof — he is now a convinced atheist. 1944. Davidson is now back in Australia and, no longer fit for overseas service, is assigned to guard duties at the POW camp at Cowra, New South Wales. One of the senior officers there is Macdonald, who has been awarded a Military Medal on the basis of his report of the encounter at the mission, there being (as he thought) no surviving witnesses, so is discomfited by the reappearance of Davidson. The Japanese POWs are segregated to their own camp and are kept confined, unlike the amiable Italian POWs, who are allowed to work on nearby farms. Davidson is amazed to discover that Hayashi has survived his wounds and is now in the camp. From a basis of mutual respect, the two witnesses of MacDonald's cowardice become friends. Murphy's widow Sally lives near the camp and Davidson is romantically drawn to her, but cannot bring himself to tell her that it was he who ended her husband's life.