The same bomb?

An article under World News (BDN, Feb. 4) caught my attention: “World War II bomb kills 13 in eastern Indonesdia. … Fishermen discovered the bomb in the sea off Morotai Island and it exploded after it had been brought ashore.” The mention of an obscure island in the South Pacific and a bomb dormant for 55 years brought back memories.

My late husband, Lt. Arlington Gray, with the 116th FA Bn. 31st “Dixie Division,” participated in the invasion and securing of Morotai Island in September 1944. An air strip and staging area was established preparatory to the Phillipines invasion.

The first air raid by the enemy was on Sept. 16, “… when a single plane dropped a bomb which landed in the bay, and thereafter air raids became an almost nightly occurrence.”(From the “History of the 116th FA Bn.)

In April 1945 they left Morotai, arrived in Mindanao and engaged in the campaign to recapture the Philippines. My husband was wounded in action May 29 and returned to the United States.

Could that first bomb dropped on Morotai Island which landed in the bay have been the one discovered 55 or more years later? Mary E. Gray Orrington