During World War II, in 1942 it became the Featherston prisoner of war camp, holding 800 Japanese POWs captured in the South Pacific. On 25 February 1943, an incident occurred where 122 Japanese Prisoners of War in the camp were shot (48 dead, 74 wounded). Tension had been building for weeks before a group of recently arrived prisoners staged a sit-down strike and refused to work. Guards fired a warning shot, wounding Lieutenant Adachi Toshio. The prisoners then rose, and the guards opened fire. Wartime censors kept details of the incident quiet to prevent Japanese reprisals against Allied POWs. After the war, the first POW to return to Featherston burned incense at the site in 1974 and a joint New Zealand–Japanese project established a memorial ground, located 2 km north of the town on State Highway 2.
