There was once a time when Australian farmers 'guarded' POWs - Italians sent to Australia and then sent out to properties as the war effort between 1943 and 1945 drained the land of labour.

In all, there were more than 18 thousand Italian POWs, most shipped from camps in India to camps in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.

Ten thousand became farm labour after a May 1943 decision by the War Cabinet to allow them to be allocated to private farms, without guards but under the supervision of a small number of Army staff.

For just 15 pence per day a farmer could clear a troublesome paddock, build fences, get menial jobs completed with Italian prisoners ready and willing to work.

The POWs many of whom had been farmers in Italy, brought new farming techniques and crops to Australia.

At the end of the war the POWs were sent home but many subsequently returned to Australia seeing it as a land of opportunity compared to poor post-war Italy.