Heritage 0610_Darwin Bombing

7/31/2019 Heritage 0610_Darwin Bombing

1/8Australian Heritage 49

New Year of 1942 was full of menace for Australians. For the first and indeed the only time in our history, wefaced an external threat to our very existence as a nation. When the threat became a reality on 19 Februaryin the form of two savage attacks by Japanese bombers on Darwin, our defences were caught offguard andill-prepared.

BY WARREN MANN

WHEN JAPAN entered the SecondWorld War, its war machine was

substantial, having been built up

over many years of mutual tension

with the United States and honed by several years

of undeclared war with China. On the morning of

Sunday 7 December 1941 (Monday 8 December

our time), without any declaration of war or other

warning, Japan launched a devastating naval airattack on the principal base of the US Pacific Fleet

at Pearl Harbor.

The bombing of Darwin

ABOVE: First air-raid on Australia, 19 February 1942, drawing byRoy Hodgkinson, 1942. Australian War Memorial, ID No ART22831. This

work was drawn from a small set of photographs taken by an ableseaman on a corvette on the day that the Japanese first bombedDarwin; the SS Neptunawas bombed whilst berthed at the Darwin

Jetty. Loaded with mixed cargo and depth charges, it caughtalight and eventually blew up. Directly in front of the explosion,the tinyVigilantcan be seen doing rescue work. To the right in the

background is the floating dock holding the SS Katoomba whichescaped the bombing. In the foreground is the SS Zealandiawhichwas dive-bombed and eventually foundered.


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50Australian Heritage

Almost simultaneously, Japaneseforces also challenged the British

Empire. Moving incredibly quickly,they overwhelmed territories andnations throughout south-east Asiaand in the Pacific Ocean in what

most Australians could only seeas a pincer movement directedat this country. Less than a weekafter Pearl Harbor, the Royal Navywas rendered largely ineffectivein the Pacific when the only two

capital ships in the Far East Fleet,the battleship Prince of Wales andthe battle cruiser Repulse, weresunk in aircraft attacks off the coastof Malaya. In the three weeks or

so before the end of 1941, Japan

had occupied Siam (Thailand)and invaded Burma, Malaya, thePhilippines and Borneo. Hong

Kong and Wake Island were takenand Manila was besieged. Strategiclocations on all fronts were falling.At home, orders were issued a weekbefore Christmas for the immediateevacuation of most of the 2000 or

so women and children in what wasquickly seen as Australias frontiertown, Darwin.

The new year brought nothingto lighten the gloom. January wasstudded with catastrophes. Manilasurrendered. Oilfields in the Dutchcolonies of Borneo and the Celebeswere captured. Kuala Lumpur fell,bringing the Malaya campaignto a close. British North Borneowas over-run. Rabaul surrendered.

Bougainville and Ambon wereinvaded. Early in February, Ambonsurrendered with the loss of the

Australian 2/21st Battalion(Gull Force); Java andthen Bali were invaded.Finally, on 15 February,the impregnable fortressof Singapore succumbedto the overwhelming force

of a Japanese land, air andsea attack, with the lossof most of the Australian8th Division, almost aquarter of the countrysfront-line army, killed ortaken prisoner. The long-held faith of Australiansin the support of Britainand the invincibility ofthe Royal Navy had beencrushed and we weresuddenly left dependant onthe Americans and on ourown efforts. Australianseverywhere were deeplyworried, but none more sothan the citizens of Darwin,from which most of thewomen and children hadleft by 15 February. Theremaining population ofabout 2000 men and 67women was little more thana military encampment.

Meanwhile, with pitifullyinadequate resources, theRAAF was striking back.In December, LockheedHudson bombers hadbeen deployed to forwardpositions on Timor,

Ambon and Namlea, from whichthey conducted harassing raids on

Japanese positions and shippingwith some success, althoughsuffering severe losses in the

process. Damaged aircraft had tobe returned to Darwin for service.In ten weeks, 17 Hudsons werelost with most of their crews,and a number of personnel werekilled on the ground. Most of theground staff were withdrawn, butthe advancing Japanese took someprisoners and destroyed aircraft onthe ground. Shortly after, 300 or soAustralian POWs were massacredin a two-week period. Very little

of this action was reported in thepress, though rumour-mongers wereeffective in creating disquiet.

Notes on aerial warfare over Port Darwin, 4th April 1942, painting by Roy Hodgkinson, 1942,Australian War Memorial, ID No ART29708. US Air Corps, No. 5 Fighter Command of 49 Group, 9

Squadron, went up to meet a force of Japanese bombers and Zero fighters. The 14th Australian Anti-Aircraft Battery fired its 3.7 inch guns on a formation of seven Mitsubishi Betty bombers, hitting theextreme left aircraft, destroying it completely. A flight of Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawks, led by Captain

Andrew Reynolds of the US Air Corps, destroyed four bombers, at the same time fighting off a Zerofighter, which was hit by Reynolds.



It was in this context that onThursday 19 February Australians intheir own land came under attackfor the first time. On that fatefulday, the Japanese naval force whichhad struck at the Americans inPearl Harbor some ten weeksearlier mounted, withoutwarning, the first of twomassive air raids on Darwinwhich together inflicted whatis still the worst disaster everon Australian soil. Thoughonly the first of a total of64 raids on the town and itssurrounds between then and

November 1943, they weremuch the most intensive anddestructive, wrecking many of

the principal facilities of thetown.

The wet season was at itsheight, but the morning haddawned clear and fine. Arounddawn, at a prearranged pointamong the islands to theeast of Timor, about 350 kmnorth-west of Darwin, the

Japanese First Air Fleet ledby Vice-Admiral Nagumo,essentially the same force

that had attacked PearlHarbor but without twoof the original six aircraft

carriers, launched a total of 188

aircraft of three different types. The

force, comprising Kate horizontal

bombers, Val dive-bombers and

Zero fighters, totalled five more

than took part in the firstassault on Pearl Harbor andwas led by the same officer,Mitzuo Fuchida, who hadcommanded the Pearl Harborattack force.

A US Catalina flying boat

on anti-submarine patrol wasattacked near Bathurst Island

by a detachment of nine high-

flying Zeros from the very

much larger Japanese flight

and, damaged, was forced to

crash-land in the sea without

being able to warn Darwin of

the approaching force.

Coastwatcher posts on

the northern tip of MelvilleIsland and on the south-eastcorner of Bathurst Island hadboth observed the Japaneseaircraft approaching Darwin.The former, manned by anAustralian naval officer, madethe first sighting but did not

report it, apparently because he didnot have the appropriate encryptioncode. The other, a Catholic priest,Fr John McGrath, had no such

First Zero Japanese fighter brought down on Australian mainland, drawing by Roy Hodgkinson,1942. Australian War Memorial , ID No ART21687. This aircraft was not actually a Zero as it is referred toby the artist but instead a Val carrier-based dive bomber. Two of these aircraft were shot downon February 19, one on the mainland and one in Darwin Harbour. The pilot of this aircraft was

buried in two humble graves, as his remains were found on two consecutive days. Roughly choppedsaplings were placed around the graves and the epitaph which reads Unknown Japanese AirmanDied 19.2.42. was punched on an old jam tin.

Members of an RAAF Spitfire squadron, alerted by a radar warning, race to their planes to takeoff on an interception flight against Japanese raiders, Darwin, 24 March 1943. Australian WarMemorial, ID No 014491


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scruples he promptly and terselyradioed the civilian aeradio stationin Darwin reporting: Big flight ofplanes passed over going south. Veryhigh. The station immediately (at9.37 am) telephoned the messageto RAAF Operations. There the

responsible officers decided that themessage related to a flight of ten USP40 Kittyhawk fighters which hadbeen en route for West Timor untilrecalled to Darwin because of anadverse weather report. However,a simple calculation would haveshown them that this small flightmust have passed well south ofBathurst Island headed in aneasterly direction and out of sightfor Fr McGrath. Nevertheless, the

RAAF, which was responsible forinitiating an air-raid alert, decidednot to do so and Darwin remainedblissfully unaware of the impendingtragedy that was to hit it 20 minutesor so later at 9.58 am.

As the US Kittyhawks approachedDarwin from the west, five of themwere instructed to land while theothers, led by an experienced pilot,

Lt. Robert Oestreicher, maintaineda protective patrol overhead.Meanwhile, Fuchida led hisformation in a wide circuit aroundto the east of Darwin and mountedhis attack from that unexpected

quarter. The nine Zeros that had

attacked the Catalina, however,having become detached fromthe main formation, proceededseparately directly to Darwin andactually arrived there first. As theyapproached from the north, flyingvery high, they saw Oestreichers

flight and immediately dived toattack. Oestreicher saw themcoming, radioed a shouted warningand advised retreating to cloudsnearby. However, in a short sharp

engagement, two of the US pilotswere shot down and killed, one was

wounded but managed to land atthe RAAF base and escape fromthe aircraft before it was strafedand burned. The fourth plane wasalso shot down, with the pilotparachuting into the harbour andreaching land some hours later.Oestreicher was left alone to face

the whole might of the Japaneseattack force, for the momentconcealed in clouds south ofDarwin. The five Kittyhawks on theground all took off again but werequickly dispatched by circling Zerosthough three of the pilots managed

to survive. Oestreicher meanwhilestayed among the clouds for abouthalf an hour until he saw two Valdive-bombers about to attack anairfield; intercepting them, hesucceeded in shooting both down,the first confirmed aerial victoriesover Australia. He managed toland safely and survived, thoughhis aircraft was destroyed on theground.

That small success was a rarity

on the day. Another was theindefatigable work of the AustralianArmy anti-aircraft gunners. Atthe time of the raid, there werefour heavy 3.7-inch guns set up atstrategic locations in and aroundDarwin and two lighter 3-inch gunsseveral kilometres south-east of thetown, all inadequately defendedagainst dive-bombing and strafing

A few men standing outside what is left of the post office, 19 February 1942. Marylyn Nichols Collection, Northern Territory Library, Photo NoPH0384/0055.



attacks by a few Lewis guns WWIlight machine guns jury-rigged

for use against aircraft. Workingfuriously during the two raids, theArmy gunners accounted for threeand perhaps four, all from the firstraid, even though the heavy gunshad no success as they had notbeen properly calibrated. US andAustralian warships under attack inthe harbour offered the only othereffective resistance and probablydispatched one or two more of theattackers, though at great cost to

themselves.The first raid was 40 minutes or

so of concentrated destruction ofpublic buildings in the town andshipping in the harbour, then theaircraft returned to their carriers.However, there was little let-up.At midday, two flights of heavybombers from recently capturedbases in Ambon and the Celebes,each of 27 aircraft armed with morebombs and heavier machine guns

and cannons than the carrier-basedbombers used in the first strike,made the second attack for the

day. Approaching from oppositedirections, they confined their 20

minutes of patterned bombing to theRAAF airfield, wrecking buildings,parked aircraft, workshops anddevastating runways and parkingareas. Though the warning systemhad worked a little better, there wasno effective defensive action.

The official count of Australianand US dead on that terrible daywas 243, with between 300 and 400injured. In reality there is reasonto believe that the actual number

killed was more than 300, thoughthe official figure for those injuredwas probably more accurate. A totalof 26 Allied aircraft were destroyed,including all ten serviceable US P40Kittyhawks, and a number of otherswere damaged. Eight ships of the 47in Darwin Harbour that morningwere sunk, including a destroyer,USS Peary, two transports, also US,two small RAN vessels and threecargo vessels, among them a British

tanker. The worst casualties weresuffered in the sinking of the Peary(91 killed) and the motor vessel

Neptunia, at the time unloading acargo of depth charges and TNT,

which was bombed and subsequentlyexploded, killing at least 45 andwrecking the main jetty. A numberof other vessels were damaged, someseverely, among them the hospitalship AHS Manunda and a USseaplane tender. Two more cargovessels were destroyed betweenDarwin and Melville Island.

At the time of those early raids,the RAAF had one flight offighter aircraft in the Darwin area,

equipped with 12 Wirraways, ofwhich five, unserviceable, wereheld at Darwin for repairs whilethe others had been dispersed twodays earlier to Batchelor, 100 or sokilometres south-west of Darwin.These aircraft, Australian-made astrainer aircraft, were no match forthe Japanese Zeros in air combatand would undoubtedly all havebeen lost had they been in Darwin.

The raids on Darwin were another

severe blow to confidence, eventhough the government workedhard to keep the full extent of the

Darwin Harbour, SS Barossaand MVNeptunaburning with RAN oil lighter on right, in the area of Stokes Hill Wharf after bombing,19 February 1942. Ron Carter Collection, Northern Territory Library, Photo No PH0469/0005.


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destruction and death a tightlyguarded secret. It is, of course, onlywith hindsight that we know that

the attacks on Darwin were notmounted as a prelude to an invasionof Australia but rather in support of

Japans seizure of the NetherlandsEast Indies (Indonesia).

Australian self-confidencetook another blow as it becameobvious that individual membersof the public service, the defenceservices and the general public,some of them in quite senior andresponsible positions, behaved less

than admirably under the stress ofthe day. Paul Hasluck, later to beGovernor-General, commentedin 1955 when he was Minister forTerritories, that 19 February wasnot an anniversary of nationalglory but one of national shame;Australians ran away because theydid not know what else to do. Thepanic-stricken procession down theStuart Highway was referred to wrylyby those who stayed on to do their

jobs as the Adelaide River Stakes.Looting was rife, only a very smallproportion of which was with the

justifiable objective of securing themeans by which the war might beprosecuted more effectively.

A Royal Commission was setup on 3 March 1942, chairedby Victorian judge, Mr JusticeLowe (later Sir Charles Lowe), toenquire into the circumstances ofthe debacle of 19 February. Allevidence was taken in cameraand the Commissioners Report,delivered in two parts on 27 Marchand 9 April, was classified as secretuntil October 1945. Nevertheless,it has been suggested that the

inquiry was stage-managed toavoid embarrassing answers to thequestions that such an enquiry couldbe expected to ask. Certainly, noknowledgeable witness was calledwho might have been able toexplain why radar air-warning wasnot available on that day, nor whyno structure for operational fightercontrol was in place. In particular,W/Cdr A George Pither, the RAAFDirector of Radar, who had visited

Darwin two or three weeks beforethe raids to arrange for the sitingthere of the first early-warning

radar unit to be deployed to anoperational area, was not called toexplain the lack of protection from

radar warning.At that time, the use of radar to

provide early warning of air attackwas in its infancy. On 7 November1941, the Australian War Cabinethad given the RAAF responsibilityfor operations concerning the useof radar to support Britain in itsstruggle with Germany and Italyand in the defence of Australia,and directed the CSIR to a programof research and development on

equipment to that end. W/CdrPither, an experienced signals officerwho had had some radar training inBritain, had been appointed to takecharge of radar operations.

Among his urgent problems wasthe need for technical personnelto operate and maintain theequipment. He set up a radioschool at Richmond, NSW, andinduced the RAF to send an officerand four NCOs as instructors

and some basic equipment.Arrangements for the basic trainingof officers and mechanics were

Darwin waterfront aflame after Japanese bombing, 19 February 1942, taken from the hill overlooking the wharf. Marylyn Nichols Collection,Northern Territory Library, Photo No PH0384/0042.



made with Sydney University and

Melbourne Technical College (now

RMIT University).

A CSIR project to modify Army

Shore Defence radar equipment

to give early warning of air attack

had not actually begun when the

war with Japan broke out. Dr J HPiddington, the scientist in charge

of it, and his team began a frenzied

development effort that, in less than

six days, produced an experimental

unit that was tested successfully at

Dover Heights in Sydney. Pither,

impressed, placed an order for

three pilot units for delivery to

the RAAF by the end of January

1942. One unit was to be for

experimentation, with the others to

be installed at Darwin and Rabaul

(in fact, Rabaul fell before that was

possible and the set was installed at

Port Moresby). The equipment for

Darwin was delivered to the RAAF

on 4 February.

Some historians have blamed the

RAAF technical officers for not

having the unit operating beforethe first bombing. In fact, the lastconsignment of necessary equipmentdid not arrive in Darwin until twodays after the bombing and therewere still considerable difficulties tobe overcome before the first of these

newly developed units could becomefully operational. Two officers whowere still on course at Richmondwere selected to take charge ofits installation, supported by fourmechanics and eight operators whowere also still finishing their courses.The radar set was air-freighted,with the aerial having to be cutinto pieces that would fit throughthe door of the DC2 aircraft. Thefirst load arrived at the chosen

site, Dripstone Caves, just northof Darwin, on 9 February, withthe third and final load, includingcritical aerial elements and anothertechnical officer, getting there on21 February. None of the officers ormechanics had even seen equipmentof that type before, they were notprovided with a manual from which

to work, nor, until the installationwas substantially complete, wereany CSIR specialists brought toDarwin to advise. Delays arosefrom problems with assembly,erection, tuning and calibration,compounded, it must be said, by a

lack of understanding and supportfrom the RAAF hierarchy inDarwin.

These problems were resolved,largely by persistence andresourcefulness and some by a visitby Dr Piddington and a colleague,and the equipment was successfullyin operation on 22 March. TheAir Force bureaucratic doubtersand sceptics of radar were forcedto acknowledge its effectiveness

when a flight of raiders was pickedup 135 km away, fighters were

scrambled and one enemy aircraft

was shot down.

From this point, the Japanese

dominance of the skies over the

north of Australia wound back.

More radar units were installed

Destroyed and damaged buildings in the business centre of Darwin after the first Japanese air raid on 19 February 1942. The remainsof Jollys Store, which was completely destroyed, can be seen in the foreground. The Bank of NSW is in the background and theCommonwealth Bank is the white building to the right.AWM Collect ion Record: P02759.009.


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as they became available and by

the end of 1942 there were five

air-warning stations and a ground-

controlled interception unit

protecting the Top End. A Fighter

Sector was formed in Darwin on

24 February 1942 to process the

information coming from these

and coordinate the operational

response to air raids. During those

months, the USAF and RAAF

fighter forces became stronger and

more experienced and the Army

anti-aircraft units overcame their

problems. The effect on Japanese

raiders was increasingly deadly. The

last of 64 air raids took place on 11

November 1943.Various books have been written

about the bombing of Darwin,

especially about the raids on19 February 1942; most havegiven inaccurate and misleadinginformation on the lack of radarwarning. Two new publicationslast year do little to set the recordstraight. The first, by Peter Grose, acompellingly readable and accuratereconstruction of the events and

their consequences, makes verylittle mention of radar. Peter Ewersbook is a carefully annotated review

of the early wartime political andbureaucratic developments that ledto Darwin being so vulnerable when

Japan launched the attack. It givesmore space to the early warnings,but perpetuates an error made more

than 50 years ago in a publicationcommissioned by the governmentthat the RAAF had radar equipmentinstalled in Darwin but could notget it operating.

The Royal Australian Air Force,with the support of the USAF,played a vital part in the successfuldefence of Australia against the

Japanese in WWII. For variousreasons, however, the role playedby a major segment of the RAAF,

ground radar, is largely unrecognisedand little understood even withinthe service itself. One reason forthis is that throughout the war andfor some time afterwards the veryexistence of the radar unit wasveiled in secrecy. Another factorwas that radar had none of theglamour of the man in the cockpit.It was not a strike force, just youngpeople, technically trained, doingshift work on small units, often

in remote, uncomfortable anddangerous circumstances. Manywithin the wartime bureaucracy of

the RAAF, most of whom trained

as pilots, either did not know

about ground radar or did not

believe it could work. However,

radar has come to be recognised as

the invention that won the war

and changed the world. Betterunderstood and supported at the

time, it might have helped prevent

or minimise the disaster that was

the bombing of Darwin.

The Author

Warren Mann was a radar

technical officer in the RAAF

during World War II.

Further ReadingBob Alford, Darwins Air War: 1942

1945.An Illustrated History, 1991; The

Aviation Historical Society of the

Northern Territory.

Peter Ewer, Wounded Eagle: The bombing

of Darwin and Australias air defence

scandal, 2009; New Holland Publishers,

Sydney.

Peter Grose,An Awkward Truth: The

Bombing of Darwin, February 1942,

2009; Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Colin MacKinnon, The Installation of31 Radar Station, Darwin, 1942,

1993; privately circulated; edited and

archived on www.radarreturns.net.au in

May 2009.

31 Radar Station at Dripstone Caves, Darwin. This air-warning radar station, only the second in Australia to becomeoperational, was on 22 March 1942 the first in Australia to provide early warning of Japanese air activity.

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