Prisoner of War Camps.
There were three Prisoner of War Camps in the Tatura, Murchison area during World War 2, Camp 13 at Murchison was constructed in 1941 to accommodate 4,000 prisoners of war brought to Australia for detention for the duration of the war.
Camp 13, was constructed in 1941 near Murchison, 20 kms south of Tatura, to accommodate 4,000 prisoners of war. These included members of the German Afrika Korps and Luftwaffe crews captured in North Africa, also crew members of enemy merchant ships captured in various locations throughout the World, and over 300 of the German Raider, HSK “Kormoran”, who had been responsible for the sinking of the Australian cruiser HMAS “Sydney” off the Western Australia coast in 1941.
Two compounds held Italian soldiers, captured
in North Africa. After the breakout of Japanese soldiers from the Cowra POW
Camp, 400 of the survivors were detained in Camp 13.
Graytown was a timber cutting camp in association with Camp 13, prisoners were engaged cutting firewood for the camps and for use in the hospitals in Melbourne.
Commissioned Officers from the German Army, Navy and Air Force were held in Dhurringile Mansion, a large two story building, originally the home of a landed squatter, nine kms south of Tatura. This was the scene of many escape attempts including that of twenty prisoners through a tunnel.
Because of the scarcity of shipping, most of these prisoners were not repatriated until early 1947.