Morotai War Crimes Trials
The Morotai war crimes trials were among the first Australian-led efforts to prosecute Japanese war criminals after the Second World War. This topic explores the investigations, the trials and their contribution to justice and reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific region.
List of accused at Morotai war crimes trials
This database lists Japanese prisoners of war accused of war crimes in the Australian military trials conducted on Morotai between November 1945 and February 1946. It records the names, ranks, military units, charges, trial references, sentences and, where applicable, the dates and locations of executions, drawing on official Australian military records and contemporary historical sources. The database provides a valuable research tool for historians, genealogists and family researchers investigating Australia's early post-war war crimes programme and the administration of military justice in the South-West Pacific.
Note: Accused war criminals with a (2) against their name indicates that they were also tried for a second war crime at Morotai.
List of war crimes tried at Morotai (Nov 1945 - Feb 1946)
This database lists the war crimes prosecuted by Australian Military Courts at Morotai between November 1945 and February 1946. Organised by individual case rather than by accused, it identifies where each offence was committed, the nature of the crime, and the corresponding trial references. The cases include the murder and mistreatment of Allied prisoners of war, the execution of captured RAAF airmen, torture, and other violations of the laws and customs of war committed across Ambon, Halmahera, New Guinea, the Talaud Islands and northern Celebes. Together, these records provide an overview of the offences investigated by Australian authorities as part of the first stage of Australia's post-war war crimes programme in the South-West Pacific.
Australia's first war crime trials
Ashes and Sakura: an Australian story of the making of a Pacific nation
Set against the remote Pacific island of Morotai and the ruins of postwar Japan at war’s end, Ashes and Sakura follows Tom Darcy, a young Australian soldier serving with the British Commonwealth occupation forces in Japan after the Second World War. As he encounters the devastation of a defeated nation and forms unexpected bonds with those on the other side of the conflict, the novel explores war, memory, love and reconciliation.
