Attacks on Northern Australia 1942 to 1943

The initial raids

The planes came over in perfect formation and let us have it... The noise was terrific. A bomb exploded 10 yards [9 m] from our trench and, believe me, we thought our end had come. Although our trench was made of rock, the vibration caused it to tremble, and the dirt and rubble fell in on our back and tin hats... if only our tin hats had extended down our backs we would have felt happier.

Senior Sister Ila Mary Smith, Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service (RAAFNS), recalls her anxiety during the first Darwin raid.

After the fall of Singapore just days earlier, the Japanese turned their attention to Darwin and northern Australia. On 19 February 1942, the Japanese attacked Darwin's ports, airfields and township from the air, in 2 separate raids. The sirens that signalled the attack wailed through the town moments before the first aircraft arrived. It was the first time the Australian mainland had come under direct attack from a foreign enemy since European settlement.

Darwin was important to Australia's defence strategy because it was an important trading port. The Japanese air reconnaissance planes flew over Darwin only days earlier. They identified an aircraft carrier, several destroyers and merchant ships in Darwin Harbour, as well as around 30 aircraft in the town’s 2 airfields. These were valuable targets for the Japanese. They wanted to prevent Allied forces from threatening their invasion of Timor and Java in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI, now Indonesia).

Learn about the Bombing of Darwin Day 19 February.

First air raid

Infantry on manoeuvres. Graves of Japanese airman amid the wreckage of aircraft. Naval volunteers save the new Darwin Hotel as the old building is burnt to the ground. Scenes of Mrs Frank Cook, last woman to be evacuated from Darwin. AMWF01180

The Japanese launched the first raid on Darwin from aircraft carriers in the Arafura Sea. The attack began when 9 low-flying Zero fighters strafed an auxiliary minesweeper, the HMAS Gunbar, moments before the air raid siren wailed.

Following this, the Japanese attacked other vessels in a devastating raid of pattern bombing, dive bombing and machine gun sweeps. Eight of the 47 ships in the harbour were sunk – 3 naval and 5 merchant class. During these raids, the American Destroyer U.S.S. Peary was also sunk, killing 88 American sailors and wounding 13. This was the greatest single loss of life on any ship attacked that day.

Enemy aircraft also dropped bombs on the city of Darwin, damaging many public buildings. The post office, police barracks and Administrator's office were among those hit. Postmaster Hurtle Bald had dug a deep shelter trench behind his home in Darwin. During the first raid, a Japanese bomb fell directly on the trench killing Mr Bald, his wife Alice, daughter Iris and 6 post office workers.

Service men and civilians rescued many badly injured crewmen from burning ships. Doctors and nurses treated many burnt and wounded survivors. The largest group of casualties were from the ships' crews and at the wharf. One heavy bomb at the land-end of the jetty blew a locomotive into the sea and killed 21 labourers gathered for their morning break.

The raid lasted about 42 minutes, and survivors believed the raid was the start of a Japanese invasion. Of the approximately 250 people who were killed, around 15 were civilians. Many hundreds more were wounded.

Brian Winspear, No. 2 Squadron RAAF, vividly recalls the first bombing of Darwin.

We...had only just landed at Darwin when the Japs arrived. We were in a trench away, about fifty yards from the hangars and you could see the Japanese in their cockpits, see their faces smiling and laughing... They picked [the Kittyhawk squadron] off one by one. Then after a bit of peace came, we, thinking they might come back again... I looked up and we saw the Jap bombers coming down from the South and we all thought they were, once again, Americans come to help us because they were coming from the South instead of the North.

We were just at the edge of the aerodrome and I looked up and the sun glinted on the bombs as they were falling and it was just like confetti. Bombs landed all around us anyway and I got bomb splinters in my hand and in my eye... There was no … the fire trucks were empty, no one on them. There were fires burning everywhere. We lost eight Hudson bombers and they were burning like billio. The officers' mess was flattened. The main drill hall had bomb damage.

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Second air raid

The second Japanese raid took off from airfields at Kendari and Ambon after a lull of just over an hour. Two groups of 27 twin-engine bombers were involved in the second raid. The first wave of the 1st Kanoya Air Group departed from Kendari and the second 1st Air Group Nells from Ambon. They passed simultaneously across the Darwin air base.

This time, the military airfield was the main target. Medium-level pattern bombing destroyed most of the base's buildings. Six Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) servicemen were killed and 9 aircraft on the ground were destroyed, including 6 Hudsons. Following the bombing, many people fled the area. In the weeks after all the women, except nurses, were ordered to leave Darwin.

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Unprepared for attacks

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The surprise attack was a great success for the Japanese who had very few losses, and minimal damage incurred by their pilots.

The success of this attack was partly due to misjudgement from the Australian command. The Area Combined Headquarters disregarded early warnings from both a naval coastwatcher on Melville Island and a Catholic missionary on Bathurst Island. By the time air raids sounded at 9:58 am, the first wave of 27 Japanese bombers was practically over the town.

This mistake cost the Allies a large number of lives, as well as preventable damage to many vessels and aircraft. Ten US Kittyhawk fighters were destroyed in the air or while attempting to take off.

The defence of Darwin was inadequate for the initial raids.

Australian defences lacking

Darwin practice shoot of Ordnance QF 18 pounder field guns. AWM F01777

The loss of Ambon and the arrival of Japanese aircraft carriers in the region signalled an increased risk of air attack on Australia. Despite this, Darwin's defences included just 2 Australian Imperial Force (AIF) combatant units and its own garrison of mostly engineers and artillerymen. By mid-February, 3 US units arrived in support. However, Darwin’s air defences were even thinner than its ground ones.

Air defence at Darwin was limited to 10 United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Kittyhawk fighters and Nos. 2 and 13 RAAF Squadrons with Hudson bombers and No. 12 Squadron with Wirraways.

The defences consisted primarily of anti-aircraft batteries. There were 3 units and a machine gun regiment:

• the 2nd and 15th Anti-Aircraft Batteries and 22nd Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, who between them had 16 3.7-inch and 2 3-inch anti-aircraft guns, and
• the 19th Machine Gun Regiment, manning light machine-gun posts.

When the siren finally signalled the first incoming attack on 19 February, the gunners took position. Lieutenant Graham Robertson was in charge of 4 of the battery's guns on a cliff overlooking the harbour on the Darwin Oval. He was surprised to see countless Japanese aircraft through his telescope.

Captain Dudley Vose of the same unit recalled what happened:

I looked up and saw things dropping from the sky, glinting from the sun as they fell. I actually saw the bombs before I saw the planes. My men were at their posts and in action before the air raid sirens sounded... We fired about 800 rounds from the 3.7-inch guns on the first day, but we were well below the target most of the time. Our equipment really wasn’t up to it. We weren’t ready for the fact that the Japs were flying very high.

Australia's Home Defence 1939-1945, Australians in the Pacific War, pg 9

Darwin's anti-aircraft guns had not been properly tested and were found to be inaccurate. Even so, the first 2 Military Medals for bravery in battle on Australian soil were awarded to 2 anti-aircraft gunners for their actions on that day.

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Gunner Wilbert Thomas Hudson, 2nd Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, was stationed at the Berrima anti-aircraft station in Darwin. During the attack, he marched out into the open with his Lewis machine gun and propped it on an empty oil drum. Despite his exposed position, Hudson fired on his Japanese attackers until he was out of ammunition.

Likewise, Gunner Lance Bombardier Frederick Wombey, 14th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, was also under attack. Using his Lewis machine gun, he opened fire on Japanese dive bombers. His actions prevented them from taking aim at the oil tanks where he was stationed.

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Strategic context

The raids on Darwin were considered a successful surprise aerial attack on Australia's naval targets. They were also a precursor to a larger campaign in which Australia would play a major role. Just after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Australian Government evacuated around 2,000 people from the town. On 15 January 1942, the Australian Government took steps to defend Darwin when they established the North-Western Air Command.

By early February, the Japanese presence north of Australia was clearly growing. Despite popular fears, the Japanese raids were not the precursor to an invasion. They did, however, interrupt the use of Darwin's port facilities, and tie up anti-aircraft defences and air force units that would have been sent to other areas.

Between February 1942 and November 1943, Darwin was raided 64 times.

Aftermath

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After the first raids on 19 February, Darwin was reinforced with 2 more airfields. Both were built to the south of the town at Coomalie Creek and Fenton.

By October 1942, the RAAF's North-Western Area Command was now 6 squadrons strong. With the help of Allied forces, they conducted daily attacks on the Japanese in the NEI.

Don Anderson, of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), served on a number of ships including HMAS Bunbury, HMAS Castlemaine, HMAS Quickmatch and HMAS Napier.

Anderson recalls the aftermath of the bombing of Darwin.

Darwin was a mess. There was not a single undamaged building in the place. It was just a mess. We tied up to the remains of the long pier and the only thing linking the two broken halves of it was a railway line which was still there, the rest of it was broken away with the Neptune, a 10,000-ton ship lying on its side alongside the wharf where it had been bombed but I didn't experience the initial bombing of Darwin but we did, every time it was a moonlight night the Jap planes would come over to do some bombing, mainly to the airport. There was nothing left in the harbour. The harbour was left fairly untouched but the first bombing, of course, that was disastrous.

Attacks on Broome

In the following months, Japanese air raids continued on many towns in northern Australia. The most deadly was the attack on Broome in Western Australia on 3 March 1942.

In February 1942, Broome was an aircraft refuelling point with an air shuttle service from Java. During the last weeks of February 1942, over 7,000 people passed through Broome. This included the former commander of the 8th Australian Division, Major General H Gordon Bennett, who had escaped from Singapore. Hundreds of evacuees were ferried to Broome in Dutch, US and Australian military and civil aircraft. Among these were the flying boats of Qantas Empire Airways.

On 3 March 1942, at approximately 9.30 am, the Japanese began their devastating air raid. Without warning, Japanese planes swept in low, bombing and strafing Broome's harbour, township and airfield. The Allied flying boats, waiting at Broome Wharf to be refuelled, were destroyed. Historians estimate that between 80 to 100 people were killed that day, and 24 aircraft were lost.

Many victims were Dutch women and children, who were packed into flying boats in the harbour. They were waiting to be unloaded and ferried ashore or waiting to depart for the southern states. Another 30 crew and passengers, mostly military personnel, were lost when a US Liberator bomber was targeted shortly after taking off.

Attacks continue on northern Australia

Between 19 February and November 1943, the Japanese continued the North Australian Air War with attacks on these coastal and inland towns and airfields:

Northern Territory

• Darwin, Northern Territory, RAAF military base
• Coomalie Creek Airfield, Northern Territory, RAAF military base
• Fenton Airfield, Northern Territory, US military base
• Milingimbi Island Airfield, Northern Territory, RAAF military base.

Western Australia

• Wyndham and Derby, Western Australia
• Port Hedland, Western Australia
• Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia.

Queensland

• Horn Island Airfield, Torres Strait, Queensland. Allied aircraft staging base for routes to New Guinea
• Townsville, Queensland and Farmland at Miallo, Queensland.

The attack on farmland was probably intended for Townsville. A 2-year-old girl named Carmel was killed.

During this campaign, Japanese air forces also targeted locations north of Australia, such as the Merauke Airfield in Netherlands New Guinea.

The last raids took place on 12 November 1943 against Darwin and Fenton Airfield. Enemy air reconnaissance continued over the region through much of 1944.

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