KOO-WEE-RUP INTERNMENT CAMP
BAYLES CAMP, KOO-WEE-RUP, VIC
DURING WWII

I believe there was an Internment Camp for Italians near Koo-wee-rup in Victoria during WWII. Carolyn Griffiths is looking for information on her grandfather who was held there. He was one of the crew of a shipping company owned by Lloyd Tristino who was held at Koo-wee-rup.

Donny Rettore, was an Italian caught in Africa in WW2 bought to Victoria as prisoner of war. He was initially held at Mt Martha, then at Koo-wee-rup (Bayles Camp) and then taken to Gladysdale to work on a potato farm owned by Mr Condon who had a son Don Condon and a daughter.

Mark Bell's family come from the Koo-wee-rup swamp area, south east of Melbourne in Victoria. Marks' father was a young boy during WWII and had always talked about the Italian Prisoner of War Camp which was located in farmland near a small town called Bayles, about 5 miles from Koo-wee-rup. He was adamant that it was a POW camp, not an internment camp.

Another military facility in the area was the Monomeith Park Airfield.

Believed to be the location of Koo-wee-rup Internment Camp

I was contacted by Alan Hamill on 27 November 2024 who advised the location for the Koo-wee-rup Internment Camp based on information passed down by word of mouth from now deceased local elders. See the above aerial photo from Google Earth showing a marker for the Internment Camp just north of Main Drain Road.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I'd like to thank Alan Hamill, Mark Bell, Nita Walsh and Carolyn Griffiths for their assistance with this web page.

"Australia @ War" WWII Research Products

This page first produced 29 March 2009

This page last updated 27 November 2024