Bombing of Darwin
The Bombing of Darwin, also known as the Battle of Darwin,[4] on 19 February 1942 was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia.[5] On that day, 242 Japanese aircraft, in two separate raids, attacked the town, ships in Darwin Harbour and the town's two airfields in an attempt to prevent the Allies from using them as bases to contest the invasion of Timor and Java during World War II.
This article is about the first and largest air raid on 19 February 1942. For the major raid of May 1943, see Raid on Darwin (2 May 1943). For other air raids on Darwin, see Air raids on Australia, 1942–43.
Darwin was lightly defended relative to the size of the attack, and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses upon Allied forces at little cost to themselves. The urban areas of Darwin also suffered some damage from the raids and there were a number of civilian casualties. More than half of Darwin's civilian population left the area permanently, before or immediately after the attack.[6][7]
The two Japanese air raids were the first, and largest, of more than 100 air raids against Australia during 1942–1943. The event happened just four days after the Fall of Singapore, when a combined Commonwealth force surrendered to the Japanese, the largest surrender in British history.
Prelude[edit]
Opposing forces[edit]
Despite Darwin's strategic importance to the defence of Australia, the city was poorly defended. The Australian Army's anti-aircraft defences comprised sixteen QF 3.7-inch AA guns and two 3-inch AA guns to counter aircraft flying at high altitude and a small number of Lewis Guns for use against low-flying raiders. The crews of these guns had conducted little recent training due to ammunition shortages.[22] The air forces stationed in and near the town comprised No. 12 Squadron, which was equipped with CAC Wirraway advanced trainers (which had been pressed into service as fighters), and No. 13 Squadron which operated Lockheed Hudson light bombers.[23] Six Hudsons, 3 from No. 2 Squadron and 3 from No. 13 Squadron, also arrived at Darwin on 19 February after having been evacuated from Timor. None of the six Wirraways at Darwin on the day of the raid were serviceable.[17] At the time of the event, there was no functional radar to provide early warning of air raids, and the town's civil defences were dysfunctional.[24] The Lowe Commission, led by Victorian judge Charles Lowe and appointed to investigate the raids shortly after they occurred, was informed that the Australian military estimated that Darwin would have needed 36 heavy anti-aircraft guns and 250 fighter aircraft to defend it against a raid of the scale which occurred on 19 February.[25] In addition to the Australian forces, ten United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Curtiss P-40 Warhawks were passing through Darwin en route to Java on the day of the attack.[17] The P-40 pilots were largely inexperienced in combat.[26]
A total of 65[31] Allied warships and merchant vessels were in Darwin harbour at the time of the raids. The warships included the United States Navy (USN) destroyer Peary and seaplane tender William B. Preston. The RAN ships in port were the sloops Swan and Warrego, corvettes Deloraine and Katoomba, auxiliary minesweepers Gunbar and Tolga, patrol boat Coongoola, depot ship Platypus, examination vessel Southern Cross, lugger Mavie, and four boom-net ships. Several USN and Australian troopships were in the harbour along with a number of merchant vessels of varying sizes.[31] Most of the ships in the harbour were anchored near each other, making them an easy target for air attack.[24] Moreover, no plans had been prepared for how the ships should respond to an air raid.[32]
In addition to the vessels in port, the American Army supply ships Don Isidro and Florence D., former Philippine vessels acquired as part of the South West Pacific Area command's permanent Army fleet earlier in February,[33] were near Bathurst Island bound for the Philippines with arms and supplies on the morning of the raid.[34]
Darwin was attacked by aircraft flying from aircraft carriers and land bases in the NEI. The main force involved in the raid was the 1st Carrier Air Fleet which was commanded by Vice-Admiral Chūichi Nagumo.[17] This force comprised the aircraft carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū, and Sōryū and a powerful force of escorting surface ships. All four carriers had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor at the start of the Pacific War.[18] In addition to the carrier-based aircraft, 54 land-based bombers also struck Darwin in a high-level bombing raid nearly two hours after the first one struck at 0956. These comprised 27 G3M "Nell" bombers flying from Ambon and another 27 G4M "Betty" bombers operating from Kendari in Celebes.[35]
Air raids[edit]
First raid[edit]
The four Japanese aircraft carriers launched 188 aircraft on the morning of 19 February. The main objective of their crews was attacking ships and port facilities in Darwin Harbour.[15] Their aircraft comprised 81 Nakajima B5N ("Kate") light bombers, 71 Aichi D3A ("Val") dive bombers, and an escort of 36 Mitsubishi A6M ("Zero") fighters. While the B5N was a purpose-built torpedo bomber, it could instead carry up to 800 kilograms (1,800 lb) of bombs and there is no evidence of torpedoes being used on this occasion; the D3A could carry up to 514 kilograms (1,133 lb) of bombs. All of these aircraft were launched by 8.45 am.[24] This wave was led by Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, who had also commanded the first wave of attackers during the raid on Pearl Harbor.[15]
On their way to Darwin, Zeros shot down a US Navy PBY Catalina and strafed a USAAF C-47 Skytrain on the ground, near Melville Island.[36] At 9.35 am Father McGrath of the Sacred Heart mission on Bathurst Island, who was also an Australian coastwatcher, sent a message using a pedal radio to the Amalgamated Wireless Postal Radio Station at Darwin that a large number of aircraft were flying overhead and proceeding southward. The message was then relayed to the Royal Australian Air Force Operations at 9.37 am.[37] No general alarm was given until about 10 am as the RAAF officers there wrongly judged that the aircraft which had been sighted were the ten USAAF P-40s, which were returning to Darwin at the time after reports of bad weather forced them to abort a flight to Java via Kupang, West Timor. As a result, the air raid sirens at Darwin were not sounded before the raid.[38]
Flying escort in a Zero fighter, Petty Officer Yoshikazu Nagahama was separated from his squadron while he was attacking the PBY flying boat and arrived over the city alone ahead of the strike force, which was making a turn to attack from the south. He engaged five US Army Air Force P-40 Warhawk fighters and single-handedly shot down four of them.[39][40]
The Japanese raiders began to arrive over Darwin at 9:58 am. HMAS Gunbar was the first ship to be attacked, being strafed by several Zero fighters. At about this time, the town's air raid sirens were belatedly sounded. The Japanese bombers then conducted dive bombing and level bombing attacks on the ships in Darwin Harbour.[41] These attacks lasted for 30 minutes, and resulted in the sinking of three warships and six merchant vessels, and damage to another ten ships.[16][41] The ships sunk were the USS Peary, HMAS Mavie, USAT Meigs, MV Neptuna (which exploded while docked at Darwin's main wharf), Zealandia, SS Mauna Loa, MV British Motorist. The oil tanker Karalee and the coal storage hulk Kelat[42] sank later. At least 21 labourers working on the wharf were killed when it was bombed.[16]
Aftermath[edit]
Consequences[edit]
Of major military consequence was the loss of most of the cargo shipping available to support efforts in Java and the Philippines with Java being effectively sealed off from further surface shipments from Australia.[58]
The air raids caused chaos in Darwin, with most essential services including water and electricity being badly damaged or destroyed.[59] Fears of an imminent invasion spread and there was a wave of refugees, as some of the town's civilian population fled inland. There were reports of looting, with provost marshals being among the accused.[60] According to official figures, 278 personnel belonging to RAAF North-Western Area Command (NWA) were considered to have deserted as a result of the raids, although it has been argued that the "desertions" were mostly the result of ambiguous orders given to RAAF ground staff after the attacks.[61] In the words of journalist Douglas Lockwood, after the second Japanese air raid, the commander of RAAF Darwin, Wing Commander Stuart Griffith:
While the NWA staff could see what was happening and issued countermanding orders "the damage was done and hundreds of men were already beyond recall".[63]
The Australian Army also faced difficulty controlling some of its own troops from looting private property, including "furniture, refrigerators, stoves, pianos, clothes[,] [and] even children's toys" due to the breakdown of law and order after the bombing and the ensuing chaos.[64] Many civilian refugees never returned, or did not return for many years, and in the post-war years some land they owned in Darwin had been expropriated by government bodies in their absence, made legal by the Darwin Lands Acquisition Act 1945.[65]
The bombing of Darwin resulted in the destruction of 7 of the 11 above ground storage tanks, located on Stokes Hill, in raids on 19 February 16 March and 16 June 1942. This led to the construction of underground oil storage tunnels in Darwin in 1943.
Commemoration and depictions in popular culture[edit]
A memorial ceremony has been held every year since at least 2009. On 19 February at the Cenotaph in Darwin, at 9:58 am, a World War II air-raid siren sounds to mark the precise time of the first attack.[128]
A fictionalised version of the raid features prominently in the 2008 film Australia.