Battle of Ambon - Laha Massacre

Laha Massacre

Allied casualties in the battle were relatively light. However, at intervals for a fortnight after the surrender, IJN personnel chose more than 300 Australian and Dutch prisoners of war at random and summarily executed them, at or near Laha airfield. In part this was revenge for the sinking of the Japanese minesweeper, as some surviving crew of the minesweeper took part. Those killed included W/Cdr Scott and Maj. Newbury. According to an Australian War Memorial principal historian, Dr Peter Stanley, over the following three and a half years, the surviving POWs:

...suffered an ordeal and a death rate second only to the horrors of Sandakan, first on Ambon and then after many were sent to the island of Hainan late in 1942. Three-quarters of the Australians captured on Ambon died before the war's end. Of the 582 who remained on Ambon 405 died. They died of overwork, malnutrition, disease and one of the most brutal regimes among camps in which bashings were routine.

In 1946, incidents which followed the fall of Ambon became the subject of one of the largest ever war crimes trials: 93 Japanese personnel were tried by an Australian military tribunal at Ambon. R. Adm Hatakeyama was found to have ordered the Laha massacres, however he died before he could be tried. Commander Kunito Hatakeyama, who was in direct command of the massacres, was sentenced to execution by hanging. Lieutenant Kenichi Nakagawa was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Three other Japanese officers were executed for mistreatment of POWs and/or civilians on other occasions, during 1942–45. (The trials were the basis for the feature film Blood Oath, released in 1990.)

General Itō was sentenced to death that same year for war crimes committed in other parts of the Pacific.