Morotai Mutiny

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 during 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".

First Tactical Air Force (No. 1 TAF), commanded by Air Commodore Harry Cobby, was the main frontline combat formation of the RAAF in 1944–45. It fell under the operational control of United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Lieutenant General George Kenney, the Allied air forces commander in the South West Pacific Area under General Douglas MacArthur. Initially made up of one Bristol Beaufighter and two P-40 Kittyhawk wings, No. 1 TAF was augmented in 1945 by No. 80 Wing, commanded by Group Captain Clive Caldwell. This wing comprised three Supermarine Spitfire squadrons, whose pilots included veterans of the North African Campaign and the defence of Northern Australia against Japanese air raids.

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