The 40-year-old soldier fired two shots into the air to alert his superiors.

WWII fighter pilot Hajime Toyoshima soon sounded a bugle, as hundreds of inmates burst from their huts armed with knives and bats.

Soldiers could feel inmates' breath on their necks as they ran to safety, Pte Rolls told his son Gordon years later.

"The lieutenant said 'run for your lives'," Mr Rolls told AAP, recalling his father's account of that night.

"Dad could run, there was no doubt about that. He was a runner.

"One prisoner came at dad with a knife and the anger on his face was unbelievable. He said, 'I just shot him'."

More than 230 prisoners were killed along with four Australian soldiers, three in the breakout and one during the recapture, in a battle that cost more lives than the bombing of Darwin in 1942.

After the war, Pte Rolls returned to his family farm at Grenfell and rarely spoke of his involvement in the only wartime land battle on Australian soil.

The soldiers were told to keep quiet as the Australian government launched a hasty inquiry that cast blame on the prisoners.

Stories that slowly emerged from survivors are central to commemoration of the breakout's 80th anniversary.

Dignitaries from Japan and Australia will attend a memorial in Cowra at 1.30am on Monday, followed by a wreath-laying and an RAAF flyover later in the day.

Veterans Minister David Harris said it is a "special time in the nation's military history, especially in NSW" and thanked Cowra Council for hosting events that helped foster unity between Australia and Japan.

The Australian War Memorial will also commemorate those who died, with its Last Post ceremony on Monday to honour one of the Australian soldiers killed, Private Charles Henry Shepherd.

Anthony Albanese attended the events on Sunday, making him the first sitting prime minister of Australia to visit Cowra since 1986.

He said the anniversary is an opportunity to "rededicate ourselves to peace".

"At a time when there is so much turmoil and conflict in the world, it is important to remember that out of those very dark days of World War II, has grown a friendship between our two nations," he said.

The prime minister described how the community of Cowra "took the ashes of war and ... carefully nourished the roots of friendship" between Japan and Australia.

Cowra is indelibly shaped by the breakout, having preserved the camp as a historical site.

A traditional garden sits on the edge of town, filled with cherry blossom trees and lakes teeming with Koi carp.

For decades the farming community has forged a connection with Japan through a sister-city agreement and exchange programs.

The reconciliation began in the years after the war, when Cowra's returned servicemen cared for the graves of their fallen comrades.

They soon noticed the Japanese prisoners' graves were unkempt, covered in weeds and marked only with wooden stakes, Cowra Breakout Association secretary and historian Graham Apthorpe said.

"They said: 'They were an enemy, but at least their graves need to be respected, they were soldiers too'," he said.

"So they went in there and started to tidy up those graves."

The RSL sub-branch's work came to the attention of the Japanese government and led to the creation of a single war cemetery.

Reconciliation had long been the focus of commemorations, Mr Apthorpe said, but remembrance was more focused on friendship after 80 years.

"Having hatred burning in your guts forever just makes everybody ill, it doesn't solve anything," he said.

Australians have come to understand the breakout could have been avoided through better communication with inmates, who were ashamed of being captured and objected to being separated across two camps.

"From that tragedy, we have an understanding of each other's cultures," Mr Apthorpe said.

"We've learned to appreciate it." 

For Mr Rolls, 72, the 80th anniversary carries great significance.

"Eighty years - that's a life," he said.

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