The Laha Massacre, 3rd - 17th February 1942.

The Laha Massacre, 3rd - 17th February 1942. (The massacre of  300 Australian & Dutch PoW's)

(Photo: A mass grave found near Laha airstrip, Ambon. The grave contained the remains of 71 Australian servicemen. Ambon was captured by the Japanese forces in February 1942 and the Australian barracks at Tan Tui became a PoW camp for the remainder of the Australian forces on the Island. Conditions were poor in the PoW camp and nearly 75 per cent of the PoWs died before liberation in September 1945. (AWM))

 

Two graves, about five metres apart, were dug in a wooded area near the village of Tawiri adjacent to Laha airstrip on Ambon Island, The graves were circular in shape, six metres in diameter and three metres deep. Soon after 18:00hrs, a group of Australian and Dutch PoW's, their arms tied securely behind them, were brought to the site. The first PoW was made to kneel at the edge of the grave and the execution, by samurai beheading, was carried out by a Warrant Officer Kakutaro Sasaki. The next four beheadings were the privilege of eager crew-members of the Japanese mine-sweeper No.9 sunk a few days previously by an enemy mine in Ambon Bay. This could only be considered as an act of reprisal for the loss of their ship. As dusk descended, and the beheadings continued, battery torches were used to light up the back of the necks of each successive victim.

The same macabre drama was being enacted at the other round grave where men of a Dutch mortar unit were being systematically decapitated. On this unforgettable evening, 55 Australian and 30 Dutch soldiers were murdered. Details of this atrocity came to light during the interrogation of civilian interpreter, Suburo Yoshizaki, who was attached to the Kure No.1 Special Navy Landing Party, at that time stationed on Ambon. A few days later, in the same wooded area, another bizarre execution ceremony took place. Around the graves stood about 30 naval personnel who had volunteered for this grisly task, many of them carrying swords which they had borrowed. When some of the younger PoW's were dragged to the edge of the grave shouting desperately and begging for their lives, shouts of jubilation came from those marines witnessing the executions. In this mass murder, which ended at 01:30hrs the following morning, the headless bodies of 227 Allied PoW's filled the two large graves. Witness to this second massacre was Warrant Officer Keigo Kanamoto, Commanding Officer of the Kure No.1 Repair and Construction Unit. (The remains of those murdered were later disinterred and reburied in the Australian War Cemetery at Tantoei).

Three commanders responsible of the executions were, Commander Kunito Hatakeyama, later sentenced to death by hanging, Lt Kenichi Nakagawa, sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and Rear Admiral Hatakeyama, who ordered the executions, died before his trial commenced.