Warbird Information Exchange

Stuart,

Could you give us more details about your friends who have actually been there recently

Laurent

airmanual - Didn't the post you are asking about seem a little odd, as it said the only places left for warbirds are Burma and remote parts of China, while we all know that PNG, Irian Jaya, Phillipines, etc., have warbirds aplenty. It sounds very PacWreckspeak, if you know what I mean. Zilch on Morotai and zilch on everywhere else except China and Burma?!

Hi George:

I think everybody has pretty well confirmed that, and as soon as we get some reliable info on Morotai we'll all know for sure.

Laurent,

My friends are sport divers, but also interested in WWII wrecks, one of my friends, Eddie had a day or so on land, when this came up I asked him if he had seen anything, his answer was "apart from the a/c on airport, there was nothing visible".
I emailed him today with a photo of the dump site, and his answer was the same, but he added, "if anything like that was still around, I'm sure I would have seen something".

Not a definitive answer but it's the best I can do without actually going there and looking.

When I added the part about Burma and China I meant the areas that had not been researched or even searched properly, sorry maybe I should have qualified my statement.

And I am not a parts salvor, I am an enthusiast, and run a shipping company in Hong Kong and have never traded in a/c parts.

Stuart

Stuart - I want to apologize for misinterpreting your earlier post. Now I understand what you were saying; thanks for your explanation. I don't think the aircraft are/were on an active part of the airbase (if there is an active part), because the very, very poor photocopy I have of the pictures Mr. Voll supplied to YAF show a row of A-20s and a row of B-25s, both rows partially covered by jungle growth, with jungle much higher than the planes themselves bordering the aircraft.

So this begs the question of were the aircraft at the airport or were they taxied or pushed far off like at Davis Monthan, here in Arizona

THis link shows a wartime photo of Morotai Airport. There are two runways. It is possible some of the excess planes were stored near one runway, and the other was used for operations. See the link below:

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/airfields/ ... nting.html

Harvard - The Indonesian sites state the aircraft are in the jungle. From my photocopies, its pretty obvious they are in the jungle, so they were either taxied, towed or somehow hauled in to what was, as of 1986 at least, the jungle. They could be completely covered by now, I guess. Stuart's friend Eddie would not have seen the burial pits because they were surely covered over after being filled, and the ground above the pits may be covered by jungle vines after 60 years.

I've got more data:

Here are two more web links which hint at whats up in Morotai. Note, it is also called Pulau Morotai:

http://indahnesia.com/Indonesia/Maluku/ ... ode=MAIMOR
http://www.regit.com/regitour/indonesi/ ... maluku.htm

In addition, I've joined an Indonesian discussion group, and posed the question to them. THey all speak some Indonesian dialect, but hopefully I haven't been too much of an "evil westerner" to them. THed'd probably back off however, if they saw the arguments we have here. Whatever, let's see what they say. I'll try not to offend them too much..

Guys,

My friend Eddie put me onto this web site, it is what made him visit Morotai

http://wwww.deepdiversions.com/scuba_to ... lazing.htm

Scroll down to Morotai, very interesting.

Stuart

The airbase had 7 runways? Interesting article.

George,

I don't know about seven runways, that might be a visual error between runways and taxiways I'm not sure I can't find any reference to the number of runways only that there was a bomber strip and a fighter strip, but he does say "and can still be sighted today".

Geo info shows the island to be sandstone and basaltic rock structure, also airport info show the airport to have an elevation of 45 to 49 feet.

I would expect that with an elevation that low, the chances of burial pits would be remote, experience shows that digging holes in tropical islands usually leads to a swimming pool, but I might be wrong, you never know.

two more links with interesting info:

www.indonesiaphoto.com/article164.html

www.ptboats.org/20-07-05-reports-007.html

An interesting bit of info dragged up, the larger island to the south Halmahera was a strong Japanese base with many airfields, it was by-passed in favour of Morotai, being nearer to the Philippines, so anyone looking for Japanese a/c might want to go there, it is less inhabited with a total pop of 1,300, so more chance of relics I assume.

Stuart

Rob,

Morotai and Halmhera belong to Indonesia.

The last earthquake there was in 2003, it was not affected by the Tsunami which was on the other side of the archpeligo to the west and centered around Sumatra.

Halmahera has at least two or three active volcanoes.

There are/were travel restrictions on ALL foreign nationals due to religious and tribal warfare, although it has been relatively quiet over the last few months, so this may have changed.

Stuart

Each new web site we see seems to indicate that the planes are still there. In fact, that island group, a forgotten part of the world (as one site describes it), sounds like its loaded. And with the airbase property and area still remaining secure and off-limits to outsiders, plus hardly any outsiders even going there, this mystery may prove very challenging to solve.

I can't remember if the site about the airline pilot seeing the jungle boneyard was Morotai or not, but I believe it said the graveyard was near, but not at, an abandoned WWII military airfield, and he did recognize B-25s. Could someone refresh my memory, please.

Well, you all know my opinion about UNESCO

Cheers

Cees (ducking to avoid flak)