Taroa Airfield was a major air base approximately three miles long and one mile wide on Maloelap Atoll

Maloelap Atoll

The Maloelap Atoll is a coral atoll of 71 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its land area is only,. but that encloses a lagoon of . It is located north of the atoll of Aur...

 in the Marshall Islands

Marshall Islands

The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...

. The airfield was the most eastern Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese air base of the Second World War. Heavily bombed during the war, it was a favorite target for bombers from Makin Airfield, Tarawa

Tarawa Atoll

Tarawa is an atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, previously the capital of the former British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. It is the location of the capital of the Republic of Kiribati, South Tarawa...

 and Abemama

Abemama

Abemama is an atoll in the central part of the Kiribati Group located 152 kilometres southeast of Tarawa and just north of the Equator.- Geography :...

.

A US Navy recon photo of this island in 1944 shows a twin-engine twin tail plane that is thought to be that of Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...

, and was published in the book Lost Star by Randall Brink in 1993.