Taroa Airfield was a major air base approximately three miles long and one mile wide on
Taroa Island
Taroa is an island in the east of Maloelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands. During World War II, it was the site of a major Japanese airfield (Taroa Airfield). The airfield was destroyed towards the end of World War II, and wreckage and remnants o ...
Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Internati ...
. The runway, which spanned the length of the island, is still in use today and known as Maloelap Airport (Airport Code: MAV).
World War II
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Taroa Airfield was the easternmost Japanese air base. It was a favorite target for Allied bombers from Makin Airfield,
Tarawa
Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati ''
Abemama
Abemama (Apamama) is an atoll, one of the Gilberts group in Kiribati, and is located southeast of Tarawa and just north of the Equator. Abemama has an area of and a population of 3,299 . The islets surround a deep lagoon. The eastern part of ...
Pacific Theater
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
, G. D. Provenza describes Taroa thus:
The target that day was an enemy personnel area on Taroa; this tiny island had already been bombed flat, but hundreds of surviving Japanese troops were reportedly still dug-in there. Over the island at 8,000 feet, Lindbergh pushed forward into a steep 60-degree dive. The enemy gamely fought back, sending up accurate small-arms fire.
A combination of aerial attacks, bombardment from naval ships, and supply line disruption caused many deaths; only 34% of those originally on the island survived. The Japanese abandoned the island on February 5, 1944.
A US Navy reconnaissance photo of this island in 1944 shows a twin-engine twin tail plane that author Randall Brink thinks belonged to missing aviator
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...
.
References
Further reading
* Adams, W.H., Ross, R.E., Krause, E.L., & Spennemann, D. (1997). ''Marshall Islands Archaeology – The Japanese Airbase on Taroa Island, Republic of the Marshall Islands, 1937-45: An Evaluation of the World War II Remains''. San Francisco, California: Micronesian Endowment for Historic Preservation, Republic of the Marshall Islands, U.S. National Park Service.
See also
*
Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign
The Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign were a series of battles fought from August 1942 through February 1944, in the Pacific theatre of World War II between the United States and Japan. They were the first steps of the drive across the cent ...