1945 incident involving Royal Australian Air Force pilots
Air Commodore Cobby (left) and Group Captain Caldwell at Morotai in January 1945
The "Morotai Mutiny" was an incident in April 1945 involving members of the Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island of Morotai, in the Dutch East Indies. Eight senior pilots, including Australia's leading flying ace, Group Captain Clive Caldwell, tendered their resignations to protest what they perceived as the relegation of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) fighter squadrons to strategically unimportant ground attack missions against Japanese positions that had been bypassed in the Allies' "island-hopping" campaign. A government investigation vindicated the "mutineers", and three high-ranking officers at First Tactical Air Force Headquarters, including the commander, Air Commodore Harry Cobby, the Australian Flying Corps' top-scoring ace in World War I, were relieved of their posts.
George Odgers summed up the cause of the incident in the official history of the RAAF in World War II as "the conviction of a group of young leaders that they were engaging in operations that were not militarily justifiable—a conviction widely shared also by many Australian soldiers and political leaders." Odgers concluded that the ensuing inquiry "made it clear that almost everyone concerned acted from the highest motives, and was convinced that, in the crisis, he acted wisely".[1]
^Odgers, Air War Against Japan, p. 450. Archived 18 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine
The "MorotaiMutiny" was an incident in April 1945 involving members of the Australian First Tactical Air Force based on the island of Morotai, in the...
the following year, but was relieved of his post in the wake of the "MorotaiMutiny" of April 1945. Retiring from the Air Force in 1946, Cobby served with...
Officer Commanding No. 80 Wing, Caldwell played a leading part in the "MorotaiMutiny", in which several senior flyers resigned in protest at what they saw...
Wing of the Australian First Tactical Air Force, and took part in the "MorotaiMutiny" of April 1945. After the war, he spent many years in New Guinea developing...
unimportant roles led to a decline in morale, and contributed to the 'MorotaiMutiny' in April 1945. Elements of the RAN and RAAF also took part in the liberation...
the war, Arthur also played a leading part in—and gave name to—the "MorotaiMutiny" of April 1945, when eight RAAF officers attempted to resign their commissions...
Air Medal. He was one of eight senior pilots who took part in the "MorotaiMutiny" of April 1945. Discharged from the Permanent Air Force at the end of...
for contributing to the low morale that precipitated the so-called "MorotaiMutiny" of April 1945, when a group of senior pilots in the First Tactical...
based on the Morotai Island in the Halmaheras Group assisting Australian ground troops in Borneo. It was here that the so-called MorotaiMutiny took place...
control of No. 1 TAF following Cobby's dismissal in the wake of the "MorotaiMutiny". He returned as Operation Oboe One, the Battle of Tarakan, was under...
casualties, setting in train events that would culminate in the so-called "MorotaiMutiny" the following April, when eight senior pilots, including Arthur and...
This led to a series of events known as the "MorotaiMutiny" in April 1945. Officers based at Morotai in the Dutch East Indies, including Caldwell, protested...
attempted to resign their commissions in an incident known as the "MorotaiMutiny". Kenney, Jones and Bostock all became involved in trying to defuse...
that eight of them tried to resign their commissions in the so-called "MorotaiMutiny". In March 1944, McLachlan took charge of Southern Area Command, Melbourne...
Captain William Gibson after the latter's dismissal in the wake of the "MorotaiMutiny", when the threatened resignations of eight of the RAAF's leading fighter...
war. Charrette and Conner brought Tachibana Maru into Morotai 6 August. Charrette cleared Morotai on 13 August 1945 called at Subic Bay before reporting...
Global Information