Morotai Mutiny
The Morotai Mutiny was an incident in World War II involving members of the Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island ofMorotai, in the Dutch East Indies. Eight senior pilots tendered their resignations to protest what they perceived as the relegation of Royal Australian Air Force fighter squadrons to strategically unimportant ground attack missions. A government investigation vindicated the mutineers and three high-ranking officers were relieved of their posts. The incident led to dissatisfaction and poor morale among No.1 TAF personnel.
About Morotai Mutiny in brief
The Morotai Mutiny was an incident in World War II involving members of the Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island ofMorotai, in the Dutch East Indies. Eight senior pilots tendered their resignations to protest what they perceived as the relegation of Royal Australian Air Force fighter squadrons to strategically unimportant ground attack missions. A government investigation vindicated the mutineers and three high-ranking officers were relieved of their posts. The incident led to dissatisfaction and poor morale among No.1 TAF personnel, particularly the Spitfire pilots who had little opportunity for the air-to-air combat they specialised in and whose aircraft were ill-suited to ground attacks. Group Captain Wilf Arthur became concerned that his units’ expenditure in terms of men, machines and ordnance was not justified by the damage inflicted on enemy targets or by the relative importance of those targets. The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal George Jones, would later contend that the RAAF,. in the words of Air Force historian Alan Stephens,’side-stepped’ out of the final victory over Japan by MacArthur, who wanted all the glory for himself”. US Marine Corps aviators from the Air North Solomons command also believed that MacArthur’s headquarters was favouring the USAAF in the assignment of combat duties.
During a series of meetings in April 1945, Group Captain Clive Caldwell proposed a proposed protest that could not go as far as he could back up his opinions. Through the protest, two other officers, including two other celebrated aces, Bobby Gibbes and Stuart Harpham, later celebrated a celebrated victory in the Battle of the Bulge. The mutiny was the first of its kind in the history of the Royal Air Force and led to the creation of Australia’s Air Force Museum. The museum was opened in Melbourne in 1946 and is now home to the Museum of Australian Aviation and the Australian War Memorial. It is the only museum in the world that commemorates the First World War and the Second World War experiences of Australian servicemen and women. It was also the first museum to display the remains of Australian pilots, including Group Captain Caldwell, who died in a crash landing in the South Pacific in 1945. The Museum is now the home of the National Gallery of Australia, a museum dedicated to the memory of those who served in the First Air Force during World War I and Second Air Force. It also houses a collection of photographs of Australian airmen and women from the war, as well as a memorial to the Australian Flying Corps.
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This page is based on the article Morotai Mutiny published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
