Morotai
| Morotai | ||
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| Waters | Halmahera Lake , Molucca Sea | |
| Archipelago | Moluccas | |
| Geographical location | 2 ° 20 ′ N , 128 ° 25 ′ E | |
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| length | 80 km | |
| width | 42 km | |
| surface | 1 800 km² | |
| Residents | 54,876 (2007) 30 inhabitants / km² |
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| main place | Daruba | |
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Morotai , also: Morty , is an Indonesian island and belongs to the province of the Northern Moluccas ( Indonesian Maluku Utara ). The island is located north of Halmahera and covers around 1800 km².
history
During the Second World War , the Japanese tried to create a runway after the island was conquered by the Dutch . Due to drainage problems , however , they abandoned the project in 1944. On September 15, 1944, Morotai was captured by US forces and served as an important base for the United States to conquer the Philippines . Until the spring of 1945, the base was the target of numerous Japanese air raids. Many damaged aircraft were simply left lying around, later more discarded aircraft were deposited on the island, so that Morotai owned one of the largest aircraft cemeteries in the Pacific region after the war. It wasn't until 1988 that most of the wrecks were brought to Java and scrapped.
The soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army Nakamura Teruo , who lived as a holdout on Morotai , was only discovered by the Indonesian Air Force in mid-1974 and surrendered to a search party on December 18, 1974. He had taken the end of the Second World War as a ruse by the enemy. A four-man search party from the Indonesian army waved the Japanese military flag and sang the Japanese national anthem , whereupon a gaunt, naked and utterly distraught Nakamura stepped in front of his hut and surrendered without resistance.
economy
The island 's population lives from wood and resin production and, to a lesser extent, from tourism .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Encyclopedia Britannica , Lemma Morotai . Retrieved March 11, 2014 .
- ^ "The Last Last Soldier ?," TIME , January 13, 1975