The Labuan Memorial was primarily intended to commemorate the officers and men of the Australian Army and Air Force who died while prisoners of war in Borneo and the Philippines from 1942 to 1945 and during the 1945 operations for the recovery of Borneo, and have no known grave.
Others were prisoners of war in the region, including a number of those who perished on the infamous Sandakan Death Marches, and many hundreds of Allied POWs (mostly British and Australian) who died during their imprisonment by the Japanese at Batu Lintang camp near Kuching were also reburied here.
This graveyard was erected by Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Among those buried are Jack Mackey (1922–1945) and Tom Derrick (1914–1945), each of whom received the Victoria Cross.