The Law of War

Palawan Massacre, 1944 War crimes
(Murder of
POWs)
Alexandra Hospital
massacre, Battle of
Singapore, 1942
Sook Ching Massacre,
1942
were tried by an
Australian tribunal, at
Ambon. Among other
convictions, four men
were executed as a
result. Commander Kunit
o Hatakeyama, who was
in direct command of the
four massacres, was
hanged; Rear
Admiral Koichiro
Hatakeyama, who was
found to have ordered
the killings, died before
he could be tried.
In 1948, in Lt. Gen.
Seiichi Terada was
accused of failing to take
command of the soldiers
in the Puerto Princesa
camp. Master Sgt. Toru
Ogawa and Superior
Private Tomisaburo
Sawa were the only few
soldiers who were
charged for the actual
involvement since most
of the soldiers garrisoned
in the camp had either
died or went missing in
the days following the
victory of the Philippines
campaign. In 1958, all
charges were dropped
and sentences were
reduced.
Laha massacre was the
largest of the atrocities
committed against captured
Allied troops in 1942".
Following the US invasion of
Luzon in 1944, the
Japanese high command
ordered that all POWs
remaining in the island are
to be exterminated at all
cost. As a result, on
December 14, 1944, units
from the Japanese
Fourteenth
Area
Army stationed in the Puerto
Princesa POW camp in
Palawan rounded up 150
remaining POWs still
garrisoned in the camp,
herded them into air raid
shelters, before dousing the
shelters with gasoline and
setting it on fire. Of the
handful of POWs that were
able to escape the flames
were hunted before being
gunned down, bayonetted,
or burned alive. Only 11
POWs survived the ordeal
and were able to escape to
Allied lines to report the
incident.
War crimes no prosecutions At about 1pm on February
14, Japanese approached
Alexandra Barracks
Hospital. Although no
resistance was offered,
some staff members and
patients were shot
Crimes against
humanity (mass
In 1947, the British
Colonial authorities in
or bayoneted. The
remaining staff and patients
were murdered over the
next two days, 200 in all.
The massacre (estimated at
25,000–50,000) [62][63] was a
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