POW/Work Camp Vehicles in Canada

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Lang

Just a comment, POW camps in Australia were a joke.

It is an embarrassing story. There were so many escapes by blokes with no where to go in such an isolated country - just wanting to get out of confinement.

Lang

There certainly is no consistancy. Some of the camps in horticultural and agricultural areas were a very handy source for farm workers, which eventually saw many POWs reluctant to be repatriated, and even returning as post-war immigrants! Creative Italians, many from similar rural backgrounds as the locals, introduced Vino and Grappa to Australian palates.

Other camps were much more like punishment for recalcitrant escapees, like Nurina, affectionately known to the Commonwealth Railways crews, who were warned to look out for stowaways, as "F***all'sville". Although for the hardened-escapees types, Nurina was perhaps remakable as a POW camp in that it had no fencing of any kind and relied on it's location alone to keep the POWs close to home.