Italian Prisoner of War Camp at Koo Wee Rup

The Koo Wee  Rup Swamp Historical Society has copies of Commonwealth Government Hirings Service documents relating to the World War Two Italian Prisoner of War Camp at Koo Wee Rup or Bayles - the documents use both names to describe the location of the Camp. Hirings Service was located at Askew House, 364 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. The official  name of the Department appears to be Department of the Interior, Hirings Section Central Office and the documents are part of the Commonwealth Record Series B985.

The Society has had a few enquiries about this Camp, mostly relating to the names of prisoners, however no names are included in the documents and as you might expect from a War bureaucracy much of the material relates to administration and officialdom. The Society does not have any photographs of the Camp, though would be keen to see some.

The Prisoner of War Camp was located on 7¼ acres on part of Lots 6 & 7, Section S Parish of Koo Wee Rup, which is the south side of the Main Drain Road, between Backhouses Road and Ballarto Road. There is a small sketch map with the documents (below) showing the location. 

A plan of the location of the Camp in a letter sent to Mr L. Einsiedel, who was leasing the land, on August 8, 1944 from Major C.W. Hutton, Assistant Director of Hirings. The writing at the top says - Main Canal, catch drain, Roadway.

This is my map showing the location of the camp, overlaid on a copy of a

Koo Wee Rup Parish Plan. 

Ballarto Road now extends through directly to Five Mile Road.

The Commonwealth took possession of the land on August 7, 1944. The entire block of land (consisting of Parts, 6, 7 & 8) was just over 58 acres and was owned by the Estate of Ardolph Edward Mosig and Frederick Leonard Smith who were leasing it to Leslie Einsiedel. The land was being used for grazing and was described on the inspection report dated July 27, 1944 as “Flat Swamp land, all cleared.” There were no buildings on the block but there was a dam, which would be used by the Camp and so a trough was provided for Mr Einsiedel’s cattle. Mr Einsiedel was to get 30 shillings per acre per annum, which is £10/17/6 per annum. 

The letter, dated August 8, 1944 to Mr Einsiedel from Major Hutton confirming that they 

will take over some of his land.

The Camp was scheduled to open October 21, 1944. There would be one officer and ten ‘other ranks’ and 88 POWs, including one who was a medical orderly. The camp would consist of ‘P’ type huts from the Rowville Camp, and there was a one ton van and two 30cwt trucks to transport prisoners to and from work. The Prisoners were employed by the Department of Commerce and Agriculture and they were paid 1/3d per day, plus they were provided with all equipment, blankets, clothing, food etc. The prisoners came from the Murchison Camp and had a medical and dental before they were ‘allotted’ to local farmers to provide labour. Local contractors would provide perishable foodstuffs and appropriate arrangements were made with the local church authorities for the spiritual welfare of prisoners. Most other arrangements e.g. financial appear to have been carried out at Murchison.

The next lot of material we have comes from February 1946 when the camp was being dismantled; the hire of land was terminated on February 22, 1946. There is a list of buildings that were sold which gives us some idea as to what the Camp would have looked like. All buildings were made of CGI, which I assume is corrugated galvanised iron, though some were made from, at the time, the popular asbestos cement.

Buildings No.1, No. 2, and No. 3 all described as Sleeping Huts and all were 60 feet 8 inches by 18 feet 8 inches in size. They were sold to Melbourne University for £370.00.

Building No.4 - Kitchen and Mess 93 ft 4 inches by 18 feet 8 inches – sold to Toora R.S.L for £250.00.

Building No.5 - Kitchen, Mess, Recreation and Sleeping – 78 feet 8 inches by 18 feet 8 inches – sold to the Athlone Presbyterian Church for £210.00.

Buildings 8 & 9 - Latrines, each 12 feet by 12 feet. Sold to Frankston Fire Brigade for £51.00.

Building No.12 - Kitchen Store ,60 feet 8 inches by 18 feet 8 inches, and the Drying Room, 23 feet 4 inches by 18 feet. Sold to Loreto Convent, Toorak for £175.00

Mess and a Provision Hut - 57 feet by 18 feet, sold for £144.00 through Melgaard & Co.

It appears that all buildings were removed by April 1947 and the army then paid the owners just over £53.00 for damage, removal of concrete foundations etc.

Letter about the sale of building 4 to the Toora RSL.

This is a scan of  a copy of a copy of the original, so it's bit hard to read.

So that’s what we know from the official documents. I asked my father, Frank Rouse,  many years ago if he knew anything about the Camp (he would have been eleven at the time the camp was operating) and he also spoke to two other local identities, Bill Giles and Ian Clark. Bill and Ian agree there was no strong security at the Camp and there was no security at weekends, but the prisoners had to wear orange overalls. Bill remembers seeing prisoners walking along the road at night when he was riding his bike home, and they could walk along the drain bank into Koo Wee Rup and to the Bay.

The POWs worked at selected farms including the AJC Asparagus farm (also known as Roxburghs) at Vervale. This was on the south side of Fallon Road, from Dessent Road, through to Simpson Road. Dad remembers truckloads of the prisoners driving down Dessent Road to the AJC farm in the morning, one guard on each truck. At lunch time a food van with a portable cooker would go the farm to feed them. Another truck load of prisoners would go to Dalmore.

Bill said they also worked on the Kinsella Brothers farm (Dan, Norman and Arthur) that grew a lot of potatoes and asparagus during the War. The Kinsellas were on the north side of the Main Drain, around Eight Mile Road. Dad said his brother Jim (who would have been thirteen at the time) remembers three Italian POWs digging potatoes with forks on the Rouse farm (Joe & Eva Rouse). Jim also remembered, as did Bill and Ian, that the prisoners had their own especially printed money and coins, but we are unsure how this was used.

This is Mario and Silvio, two of the prisoners with Jack, Patsy and Gerard Cunningham. It was taken on the Cunningham farm on Eight mile Road, Nar Nar Goon South.

 I wonder what happened to Mario and Silvio after the War?

This wonderful image is courtesy of Gerry Cunningham.

I wrote this piece originally in 2011 and since then an interesting book called No Regard for the Truth: Friendship and Kindness. Tragedy and Injustice. Rowvilles's Italian Prisoners of War by Darren Arnott was published in 2019. In December 1944, a camp was opened in Rowville to house Italian Prisoners of War. It was under the supervision of the Murchison camp and initially housed 100 inmates. The camp was located on the south west corner of Stud and Wellington Road, when Rowville was still very much a country town. It was very low security and the men worked on the neighbouring farms, the engineers depot at the Oakleigh rail yards or the salvage depot at Fisherman's Bend. In June 1945, Rowville became a relocation camp for prisoners who were to be relocated to other areas. A prisoner, Rodolfo Bartoli, was shot dead by the camp commandant, Captain Waterston, allegedly because he was trying to escape. Rodolfo and another prisoner, Eduardo Pizzi, had spent a short time at Koo Wee Rup, so now we know two of the inmates. It's a great book by Darren and you can buy it through his website https://darrenarnott.com/

A version of this story, which I wrote and researched, appears on my work blog, Casey Cardinia Links to our Past and it has also been published in the Koo Wee Rup Blackfish and other places. This post is revised and updated.