Ambon Island sits in the Maluku archipelago, just south of the much larger Seram. Shaped like a figure eight, it consists of two peninsulas, Hitu in the north and Laitimor in the south, connected by a narrow isthmus with long bays on either side. The strategic prize was Laha Airfield, positioned on the western edge of Hitu facing Ambon Bay. Both the Dutch and the Australians understood what the Japanese wanted: an air base within striking distance of Australia. As early as 1940, the Australians had recognized Ambon as a stepping stone for a Japanese advance southward, and they negotiated with the Dutch government-in-exile to bolster defenses. But recognizing a threat and preparing for it proved to be different things entirely. By January 1942, the 2,800-strong Dutch garrison was poorly equipped, partly because the Netherlands itself had been defeated and occupied by Nazi Germany. The colonial troops lacked radios and relied on landlines. Three hundred of them were partly trained reservists.

The Japanese struck on 30 January with about a thousand marines and army personnel landing on the north coast of Hitu, while additional forces hit the southern coast of Laitimor. On paper, the opposing forces were roughly equal in size. In practice, the Japanese held overwhelming superiority in air support, naval artillery, and armor. The two remaining Allied fighter aircraft, Dutch Brewster Buffalos, had already been shot down in a courageous but futile engagement on 13 January, when their pilots attacked a formation of ten Mitsubishi Zeros. Both pilots survived. Lieutenant Broers continued attacking even after his aircraft caught fire, bailing out over the sea with severe burns. Sergeant Blans parachuted into the trees with seventeen wounds. Within a day of the landings, Dutch detachments were overrun. Bridges that were supposed to be destroyed to slow the Japanese advance were left intact. Telephone lines were cut, severing communication between commanders. By 31 January, confusion was spreading faster than the Japanese forces themselves.

The surrender came in pieces, each one more chaotic than the last. On the afternoon of 31 January, a motorcycle with white flags was seen driving toward the Japanese lines from the Paso position. No one was certain who had authorized it. When Dutch commander Lieutenant Colonel Kapitz and his officers ordered their troops to resume fighting, they returned to their positions to find their men already taken prisoner. Kapitz himself was captured on 1 February and sent a note urging the Australian commander to surrender. It took two days for the message to reach Scott. Meanwhile, the Japanese pressed their advantage with mountain guns, dive bombers, infantry assaults, and naval artillery. Lieutenant Bill Jinkins, commanding the main Australian force on Nona plateau, found himself nearly encircled on 2 February and withdrew to discover the Dutch had already surrendered. By 3 February, with supplies exhausted and casualties mounting, Scott decided to surrender. The defense of Ambon had lasted five days.

The battle's casualties were relatively light. What followed was not. Over the next two weeks, Japanese naval personnel selected more than 300 Australian and Dutch prisoners of war at random from those who had surrendered at Laha airfield and executed them in four separate massacres. The men were bayoneted, clubbed to death, or beheaded. None survived. Among the dead were Wing Commander Scott and Major Mark Newbury. The killings were partly motivated by revenge: the Japanese minesweeper W-9 had struck a Dutch mine in Ambon Bay and sunk on 2 February, and surviving crew members participated in the executions. For the prisoners who lived past those first weeks, the ordeal was far from over. Shipped to camps on Ambon and later to the island of Hainan in China, they endured overwork, starvation, disease, and systematic brutality. Three-quarters of the Australians captured on Ambon died before the war ended. Of the 582 who remained on the island, 405 perished.

In 1946, one of the largest war crimes trials in history convened on Ambon. Ninety-three Japanese personnel faced an Australian military tribunal. Rear Admiral Hatakeyama, who had ordered the Laha massacres, had died before he could stand trial. Commander Kunito Hatakeyama, who carried out the orders directly, was sentenced to death by hanging. Lieutenant Kenichi Nakagawa received twenty years' imprisonment. Three additional officers were executed for the mistreatment of prisoners and civilians during the occupation. The trials became the basis for the 1990 feature film Blood Oath. Roughly thirty Australian soldiers managed to escape Ambon in the weeks after the surrender, some rowing canoes across open water to Seram. Another consequence of the island's fall proved equally devastating: Japanese aircraft based at Laha participated in the major air raids on Darwin, Australia, on 19 February 1942, realizing the very threat that Australian strategists had feared when they first looked at Ambon on a map.