Tomcat is redirecting the browser to the URL of the file it is actually
delivering.  This is normal, and generally desirable behavior.  Apache
and IIS also do this sort of thing for welcome pages.

Well, you could try writing a bonafide servlet to wrap a forward to
index.jsp, and then map the servlet to the context root.  You will want
to verify that this does not prevent other pages from being served (or
if it does, then make the servlet more complex so as to support it).
Really, though, I think that has high potential to cause you problems
down the road.

John Bollinger
jobollin@indiana.edu