Visit to Tobelo North Halmahera: HISTORICAL PLACES IN MOROTAI AND HALMAHERA ISLAND

In mid-August 1944, the 33rd Infantry Division was transferred from Sixth to Eighth Army control in New Guinea. Following the division's introduction to combat, the Christmas present for its troops was a South Pacific cruise to Morotai, a small island in the Moluccas group nearly 300 miles northwest of Sansapor, New Guinea.
General Douglas MacArthur's staff knew that if U.S. forces held an airstrip in this group of islands in the Dutch East Indies they would have a strategic base from which to launch operations against the Philippines, about 400 miles away.
To meet the October timetable for MacArthur's return to the Philippines, troops of the 31st Division and the 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Division, had streamed ashore on Morotai on September 15, completely surprising and dispersing an enemy force of 1,000 men. Airstrips were immediately built to accommodate the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers of the Thirteenth Air Force. A strong perimeter defense around the new base was adequate protection against the small, disorganized elements of Japanese remaining on Morotai.

I SHALL RETURN

An Old airport built by US and UN soldiers in 1944, it's located in Wama Morotai.It has 7 strip all together, now the 3 strips are used by Indonesian Air Force and the other 5 strips are covered by weeds and plantation.

The soldiers were mostly Australian in that mission, one of them might be your father or grand father

Original picture of Morotai War cemetery in 1944

Australian war memorial in Morotai Island
MOROTAI WAR CEMETERY . Photo August 2014
This is the Cemetery are of WW II own by US and Australia, only the cross shaped concrete left. it is located near Pandanga Morotai.

Dive in to B 24 Bomber wreck in Wawama Morotai

JAPANESE WERE BASE IN KAO BAY HALMAHERA ISLAND
During the US and UN attack in WW II, Japanese soldiers were hide in to bunkers in Galela, Kao,Tobelo and East Halmahera