Interesting information on Morotai

[HarvardIV]

The Muslims don't eat you...they send you to paradise. Save me a virgin
Chris!

Well, think the little buggers would have better things to do than hanging out with natives wearing loincloths on Morotai. I think they consider those worth 1/2 a point each. Not virgin worthy material.

[Browny]

Guys, while on the subject of Morotai, I must say that my interest has tended to be towards Noemfoor.

This was a small (a dozen miles across) island just west of Biak in Irian Jaya, which hosted three airbases during the war. It was heavily utilised by the RAAF, USAF and Japanese and by all acounts has escaped the recent scap drives by the Indonesians (as happened on Morotai in the 80's).

The Aussie scrappers attended the island during the 50's, however as seen at other similar sites, these early scrap drives were not too thorough and significant finds may still exist on the island.

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/provinces/irian_noemfor.html

There's only one way to find out what's still up there in the jungle, and that is to spend some cash and take a bit of a bush walk. Having flown around South Asia many times, I can guarantee you will not see much more than foliage from the air (even at 200ft from a UH-1), as the jungle is just far too thick.


Cheers

Browny

[HarvardIV]

Browny Wrote:

This was a small (a dozen miles across) island just west of Biak in Irian Jaya, which hosted three airbases during the war. It was heavily utilised by the RAAF, USAF and Japanese and by all acounts has escaped the recent scap drives by the Indonesians (as happened on Morotai in the 80's).

Ok Browny, I agree with you let's keep Noemfoor on our list, but I've got more to add to the list after doing more homework. I studied the Dec '44 USAAF Combat Chronology, and putting each airfield into the Australian War Memorial photo archive search engine. In addition I looked at the Combat Chronology, and compared with the map of Halmahera Island. Here're the results:

Miti Island--Very small maybe 1 mile in diameter in the Kao bay of Halmahera. This one is probably forgotton by scrappers. There was a Japanese airfield there.

Kaoe AKA Kao airfield. This is now a recognized airport near Miti at the mouth of Kao bay. Supposedly this was a Kao area mentioned as having 300+ planes on the indonesiaphoto website. Not sure if the airport is ever used to this day. There may be some wrecks in the vicinity.

Galela Airfield--a little North of Kao, received some bombardment. Again marked as a current airfield on the Halmahera map, but so is Morotai. Maybe something could be found there.

In the Moluccas Islands Haruku airfield on Haraku Island AKA Haroekoe. It's on the island of Haruku, population 100,000. It's possible something exists there, but I think it's far more likely on Halmahera--(5-10x larger only 130,000 people). It looks like the only airport on that island was the wartime airport.

Buru Island--West of Ceram, population 32,000. Airfield called Namlea. It is possible wrecks still exist there. A penal colony for anti Sawarto folks during Sawarto's gov't. It appears likely for wrecked aircraft.

Borneo--Jesselton Airfield This one is a possibility. Sparsely populated area. AWM photo archive shows a Ki-21 Sally tail at Jesselton.

Borneo--Sandakan Airfield heavily bombarded Japanese Airstrip--photo says unservicible airfield. Japanese. Prison camp nearby.


More to follow,

Chris

[Tony]

I thought Noemfoor had been hammered in recent times?

Maybe Rob G or some of our other Australian posters could give the heads up on that?

Borneo , most definitely. I've seen a photo in an Army Mess, of a group of guys stood around a Zero , in relatively complete condition. Not sure about Brunei , but I can ask soneone from the JW school if they've ever seen anything.

The problem here is the Jungle. Bamboo can grow up to 6' in one day I believe, and as those pictures from Morotai show, the Jungle does cover things very very fast indeed.

Has anyone ever given the Japanese Home Islands, or close by , a really good dose of looking at? Not the Kurils , I mean the Eastward Islands.

Personally , I like my wreck hunting without having to smoke Leeches off my private parts

[airmanual]

Chris,

If you don't know it already, this site may help you in your airfield search : close to 2.000 are in the database so far.

Laurent

http://www.j-aircraft.org/airfields/af_main.htm

[HarvardIV]

Thanks Laurent:

Folks:

It appears that whatever was left at Borneo after WW2 may still be there due to the remoteness of the area.

In Borneo alone there are at least 4 places of interest they are:

Seppangang Airfield-- occupied after WW2 by the RAAF. THis airfield runs right along the beach in Balikpappan. RAAF aircraft present included: B-25s, C-47s, Boomerangs, P-40s, Mosquitos and SPitfires.

Manggar Airfield --A booby trapped airfield complete with land based torpedos aimed out to sea. Also, possibly booby trapped palnes and structures. A colleague was a helicopter pilot in the vicinity in the 60's. He said that the airfield and planes were still there, however the airfield was fenced off, due to booby traps still present.

For photos of Manggar and Seppangang airfields visit my photo site:
http://community.webshots.com/scripts/controlPanel.fcgi

Labuan--Ki-51s there in 1945 they were fl;own in from Keningau. Avisitor to the pacific wrecks website apparently visited this site or Keningau and found some Ki-51 wrecks

Keningau--Keningau a Ki-51 squadron. A few of the flyable ki-51s were flown to Labuan at the end of the war for evaluation by the RAAF. As far as it is known, the remainder of the planes were left behind here.

[HarvardIV]

oops, this is the right site:

http://community.webshots.com/user/harvardiv

[airmanual]

Chris,

As the info we have about this mass scrapping in 1988 comes from Pacific Wrecks via Elliot Smock, did you try to contact him directly and see what he has to say about it.

Easy to find him as he posts aircraft parts for sale on Barnstormers :

MITSUBISHI 'VAL' COMPASS • OFFERED • Compass from Japanese Navy dive bomber in very good condition. Please email for pics. • Contact Elliott Smock - located London, United Kingdom • Telephone: ++ 44 207 231 6763 • Posted November 18, 2004 • Show all Ads posted by this Advertiser • Recommend This Ad to a Friend • Send a Message

Laurent

[HarvardIV]

Li Laurent:

Yes I did, and he didn't respond. I presume he doesn't want to leak out info.

[HarvardIV]

Hi Laurent:

Yes I did, and he didn't respond. I presume he doesn't want to leak out info.

[bdk]

The other photos George mentioned, were Hudner and Browns Corsairs on a North Korean hillside ( Now that would be the THE recovery coup)

I sent the photo sets to CIHLI , who did confirm they appeared to show Corsairs, and the position was correct. There were also what appeared to be A/B-26 remains in the area too. Terrian was ghastly, and it appeared Tom Hudner put his Corsair down in the one flat spot for miles.

You must mean this one entitled "NorthKoreaCorsair":

http://community.webshots.com/album/244637426kDNsQH?969

[george]

Laurent - I think I read on PacWrecks that Mr. Smock and the founder of the PacWrecks site search for wrecks as a team, or together, and you know the PacWrecks philosophy regarding recovery. I agree, it would be very interesting to know where or how he came up with the info that the planes were removed and scrapped.

[airmanual]

bdk,

Looked at the sat photo best i could but can't see nothing. Do you actually see a corsair somewhere.

As far as Pacific Wrecks is concerned, i'll contact Justin directly. Pretty sure he will answer.

Laurent

[Tony]

Laurent

Look at the area 40.355 ,127.0227. The discussion on the image is in the archives somewhere , the late great Mick did a blow up, and circled AOI's

Regards

Tony

[Originalboxcar]