Labuan War Cemetery is the most powerful place on the island. Nearly 3,900 Commonwealth servicemen are buried here, many of them Australians from the Borneo campaign of 1945, along with British, Indian, and other Allied dead. The rows of white headstones are kept with the formal care of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, but the personal inscriptions keep the place from feeling abstract.
Come early or late in the day, when the heat is softer and the grounds are quiet. The cemetery is close to the airport, so it can be a first or last stop on Labuan, but it deserves more than a rushed look from a taxi window.