In December of 1942, six men stole food, and when they were caught they were tied to coconut trees, whipped with a wire, and beaten with a wooden club 3 inches in diameter. After this brutal punishment, they were forced to stand attention while a guard beat them unconscious, then revived them for further beatings. Two Americans took took green papayas from a tree and Private Nishitani broke their left arms for punishment. 

 

Allied troops were required to build underground wooden bunkers, which they believed were to protect them from the bombs of the United States airplanes that flew overhead. On 14 December 1942, at 2:00 p.m., the prisoners were forced into the wooden bomb shelters that they had built. After they were inside, the shelters were doused with gasoline and lit with flaming torches and then hand grenades. Most who were able to make it out of the burning shelters were machine-gunned, bayoneted, or clubbed to death. About thirty or forty got out and went through or under the barbed wire fence that they had fabricated for situations such as this. After they made it past the barbed wire fences, they jumped or climbed down the cliff to the rocks below. Some tried to swim across the sound and were shot. Soon, the Japanese were down on the rocks, searching everywhere for Allied troops and killing any they saw.

 

Those who stayed inside the buildings all died. The skeletons that were found at the places of burning were all huddled in the corner as if they were trying to get away from the fire. Scientists also noticed that there were conical marks on the fingers of the skeletons, as if the men had tried to dig their way out of the shelters.