Airfield Labour Camp in Liang

Internees: prisoners of war
Number of internees: 1.780
Number of deceased: 163 (at least)
Information: Prisoners of war were put to work on Ambon expanding the Liang airfield, which had been begun under Dutch authority at the end of 1941. Initially the workforce consisted of 1,024 British prisoners of war from Batavia, brought to Ambon on the Mayahashi Maru and the Nishii Maru. They were housed in barracks they built themselves from bamboo and atap, surrounded by barbed wire. On 29 May and 2 August 1944 the airfield came under heavy Allied bombardment.
Commendant: lt. Ueda Tadao
Main guards: Yamamoto Toshio
Guards: Koreans
Camp leaders: maj. L.N. Gibson
Literature: Audus, L.J., Spice Island slaves. A history of Japanse prisoner of war camps in Eastern Indonesia, May 1943-August 1945 (Ham 1996)
Veenstra, J.H.W. e.a., Als krijgsgevangene naar de Molukken en Flores. Relaas van een Japans transport van Nederlandse en Engelse militairen 1943-1945 ('s-Gravenhage 1982)
Kesasar, Totok, Geen saai leven. Het leven van een thee- en rubberplanter gedurende de jaren 1926-1947 [1982])
Korteweg, R., De 1000 van Amahei (Batavia [1946])