Corporal Stan Davidson (Alan David Lee) is still recovering from his war injury when he’s posted to the prisoner of war (POW) camp at Cowra. He assumes he’ll be guarding Italian prisoners. The camp has a relaxed feel about it and Italian POWs march past him singing on their way to work. Major Horden explains to Stan that the camp is run according to the Geneva Convention, the list of rules drawn up by the international community to govern the way prisoners of war are to be treated. It comes as a huge shock to Stan to discover that the camp also holds Japanese POWs and that he’s been assigned to guard them.