Ambon Island is part of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. The island has an area of 743.37 km2 (287.02 sq mi) and is mountainous, well watered, and fertile. Ambon Island consists of two territories: the city of Ambon to the south and various districts (kecamatan) of the Central Maluku Regency to the north. The main city and seaport is Ambon, which is also the capital of Maluku province, while those districts of Maluku Tengah Regency situated on Ambon Island had a 2020 Census population of 128,069. Ambon has an airport and is home to the Pattimura University and Open University, state universities, and a few private universities, which include Darussalam University and Universitas Kristen Indonesia Maluku (UKIM).
North Maluku is a province of Indonesia. It covers the northern part of the Maluku Islands, bordering the Pacific Ocean to the north, the Halmahera Sea to the east, the Molucca Sea to the west, and the Seram Sea to the south. It shares maritime borders with North Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and Central Sulawesi to the west, Maluku to the south, Southwest Papua to the west, and Palau and the Philippines to the north. The provincial capital is Sofifi on the largest island of Halmahera, while the largest city is the island city of Ternate. The population of North Maluku was 1,038,087 in the 2010 census, making it one of the least-populous provinces in Indonesia, but by the 2020 Census the population had risen to 1,282,937, and the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 1,319,338.
HMAS Ipswich (J186/B244/A118), named for the city of Ipswich, Queensland, was one of 60 Bathurst-class corvettes built during World War II and one of 20 built on Admiralty order but manned by personnel of and later commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
Ambon is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of Maluku. This city is also known as Ambon Manise, which means "beautiful" or "pretty" Ambon in the Ambonese language. It covers a land area of 359.45 km2, and had a population of 331,254 at the 2010 Census and 347,288 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 348,225. The city is divided into five administrative districts – namely Nusaniwe, Sirimau, Teluk Ambon, Baguala and Leitimur Selatan. Known as Indonesia's music city, Ambon became the first city in Southeast Asia to be recognised as the UNESCO City of Music in 2019.
Morotai Island Regency is a regency of North Maluku province, Indonesia, located on Morotai Island. It covers an area of 2,336.6 km2 including the smaller Rao Island to the west of Morotai. The population was 52,860 at the 2010 census and 74,436 at the 2020 census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 78,270.
Civil Air Transport (CAT) was a Nationalist Chinese airline, later owned by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that supported United States covert operations throughout East and Southeast Asia. During the Cold War, missions consisted in assistance to "Free World" allies according to the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949.
Maluku is a province of Indonesia. It comprises the central and southern regions of the Maluku Islands. The largest city and capital of Maluku province is Ambon on the small Ambon Island. It is directly adjacent to North Maluku, Southwest Papua, and West Papua in the north, Central Sulawesi, and Southeast Sulawesi in the west, Banda Sea, Australia, East Timor and East Nusa Tenggara in the south and Arafura Sea, Central Papua and South Papua in the east. The land area is 46,150.92 km2, and the total population of this province at the 2010 census was 1,533,506 people, rising to 1,848,923 at the 2020 census, the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 1,881,727. Maluku is located in Eastern Indonesia.
Permesta was a rebel movement in Indonesia that was declared on 2 March 1957 by civil and military leaders in East Indonesia. Initially the center of the movement was in Makassar, which at that time was the capital of the province of Sulawesi. However, support for the movement in South Sulawesi gradually dissipated, forcing the headquarters to move to Manado in North Sulawesi.
The National Institute of Aeronautics and Space was the Indonesian government's space agency. It was established on 27 November 1963, by former Indonesian president Sukarno, after one year's existence of a previous, informal space agency organization. LAPAN is responsible for long-term civilian and military aerospace research.
HMS Aurochs (P426/S26), was an Amphion-class submarine of the Royal Navy, built by Vickers Armstrong and launched 28 July 1945. Her namesake was the aurochs, an extinct Eurasian wild ox ancestral to domestic cattle and often portrayed in cave art and heraldry.
Allen Lawrence Pope was an American military and paramilitary aviator. He rose to international attention as the subject of a diplomatic dispute between the United States and Indonesia after the B-26 Invader aircraft he was piloting in a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert operation was shot down over Ambon on May 18, 1958, during the "Indonesian Crisis".
The Battle of Morotai, part of the Pacific War, began on 15 September 1944, and continued until the end of the war in August 1945. The fighting started when United States and Australian forces landed on the southwest corner of Morotai, a small island in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI), which the Allies needed as a base to support the liberation of the Philippines later that year. The invading forces greatly outnumbered the island's Japanese defenders and secured their objectives in two weeks. Japanese reinforcements landed on the island between September and November, but lacked the supplies needed to effectively attack the Allied defensive perimeter. Intermittent fighting continued until the end of the war, with the Japanese troops suffering heavy loss of life from disease and starvation.
HMS Heartsease was a Flower-class corvette of the Royal Navy. She served with both the Royal Navy and the United States Navy during the Second World War, with the latter navy as USS Courage. She then spent several years under a succession of names in civilian service. In 1957 she was chartered on behalf of Indonesian rebels to smuggle rubber, copra and matériel. The Indonesian Air Force intercepted and sank her off the coast of Minahasa in North Sulawesi in December 1958.
Eagle Oil and Shipping Company was a United Kingdom merchant shipping company that operated oil tankers between the Gulf of Mexico and the UK. Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray founded it as the Eagle Oil Transport Company in 1912 and sold it to Royal Dutch Shell in 1919. It was renamed Eagle Oil and Shipping Company in about 1930, and remained a separate company within the Royal Dutch Shell group until it was absorbed in 1959.
William Henry Beale Jr. was a US military and paramilitary aviator. In the Second World War, he was in the USAAF and flew bombing missions in the northern Pacific theater. In the Permesta rebellion in Indonesia in 1958 he flew bombing missions for the CIA. His career ended on a CIA covert mission in Laos in 1962 when he was killed in a plane crash.
SS San Flaviano was a British oil tanker owned by Eagle Oil and Shipping Company, a British subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. She was built by Cammell Laird in England in 1956 and attacked and sunk by the CIA in Borneo in 1958.
MV Daronia was a 1930s British oil tanker owned by Anglo-Saxon Petroleum, a British subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. She was launched in 1938 by Hawthorn, Leslie in North East England and completed in 1939. She was one of a class of 20 similar tankers built for Anglo-Saxon.
SS Aquila was a cargo ship built in Britain in 1940 for Stavros Livanos' Trent Maritime Co Ltd. by William Gray & Company. An identical sister, Duke of Athens, was built for Trent at the same time.
SS Flying Lark was a ship built in Fredrikstad, Norway in 1915 as the banana boat SS Honduras. Over a 43 year career that spanned oceans and seas the world over she had 10 owners, eight names and a succession of different managers.
SS Armonia was a 2,740 GRT cargo ship built in Britain in 1924 for the Moor Line as SS Tullochmoor. Scrapped in 1960, she had eight sets of owners, managers and names over her 26-year career.
