Commemorative brass plaque for members of the Australian and Allied Forces who died at Ambon as prisoners of war

Brass plaque with acid etched border and lettering. The lettering reads, 'ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF MEMBERS OF AUSTRALIAN AND ALLIED FORCES WHO DIED AT AMBON JAN-FEB 1942/ 1 JAN 1946'.

Made by PX179 Captain Michael Butler of 101 Army Troop Company, Royal Australian Engineers. His company assisted a war graves unit in the exhumation and reburial, at Tantoei, Ambon, of Australian members of Gull Force (2/21 Battalion and its supporting units), members of the RAAF operating out of Laha airfield, and some other Allied personnel killed in the defence of Ambon against the Japanese in January and February 1942, and of the victims the Laha massacre in February 1942. 229 Australians and some allied troops where executed at the village of Tawiri, adjacent to the Laha airfield, in reprisal for the sinking of a Japanese mine-layer, and buried in two mass graves. Two identical plaques were made by Captain Butler and attached, together with a brass cross, to cement plinths, approximately 1800mm high, in the Tantoei cemetery, on 1 January 1946. Over time the two plinths originally erected in 1946, together with their plaques, became delapidated. In 1980 troops of 2 Field Survey Company, RAASC, restored one of the plinths and arranged for a replica plaque, copying the original design and lettering to be made by the Sydney Workshop Company, RAEME, to be placed on the restored plinth, as the original was barely readable. The second plaque was removed from the cemetery, re-etched to a readable state and presented to Gull Force Association, who subsequently donated it to the Australian War Memorial.