Douglas Lockwood - Australia Under Attack: The Bombing of Darwin

For
Archer Thomas

Published in Australia in 2005 by
New Holland Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
Sydney Auckland London Cape Town

www.newholland.com.au
1/66 Gibbes Street Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia
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86 Edgware Road London W2 2EA United Kingdom
80 McKenzie Street Cape Town 8001 South Africa

Copyright 1966 Douglas Lockwood
Copyright 2005 in photographs: Australian War Memorial or as listed
Copyright 2005 New Holland Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd

First published as Australias Pearl Harbour by Cassell Australia Ltd in 1966.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

ISBN 9781741102697.
eISBN 9781921655296.

I have attempted here to tell the story of February 19, 1942, and the events that immediately preceded and followed the first bombing of Darwin. I have deliberately refrained from extending it beyond that period.

I was fortunate in having been present and thus am able to write from personal experience. However, I had realised for some years that to give a full account would require interviews with American, Japanese and other nationals who took part. It has been possible only in recent times for me to go abroad for that purpose, but I was able to trace many survivors, notably the leader of the Japanese air attack force, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese who planned the operation, and Japanese historians who had access to vital records. In America I found former airmen who had flown against the Japanese that day and been shot down.

Meanwhile, for several years, I had been interviewing Australians who were present. From all of this I have attempted to write a comprehensive story.

When planning the book I had to choose between a strictly chronological account of the battle as it developed, and one that would describe the events in particular sectors. It seemed to me that the latter was the better method. To have attempted it chronologically would have meant frequent transfer of the scene of action from one sector to another. That would have presented difficulties in maintaining continuity and must have impaired clarity.

In separate sections, therefore, I have described what happened in the air, at the aerodromes, in the harbour, on the wharf at the anti-aircraft batteries, and in the town and the hospitals.

As far as possible, I have told the story through eyes other than mine. Direct quotation has been used only after careful questioning of the person concerned. Conversation between two people has been used, in general, only after both have agreed on what was said, but in some cases that has not been possible.

I have examined the findings of a Royal Commission appointed by the Federal Government into the circumstances of the bombing and, finally, have described the eventual fate of the Japanese who took part.

To thank personally all those who have helped and encouraged me to write about the first attack in history against the Australian mainland would be almost impossible. Hundreds of letters and interviews were involved.

However, I must acknowledge the debt I owe to the Japanese naval historian, Mr Hitoshi Tsunoda; the air attack leader, Commander Fuchida; Mr A.J. Sweeting and others of the Official War History staff in Canberra; the Director of Posts and Telegraphs in South Australia, Mr J. R. OSullivan; Mr E. Bennett-Bremner, of Qantas; Lieut Owen Griffiths; Mr C. L. A. Abbott; and Mr Frank Devine, an Australian journalist in Tokyo who helped immeasurably in my approaches to the Japanese.

To the other men and women who read this book, knowing of their contribution to it with letters, interviews and photographs, or simply in checking a single fact, I express my gratitude. In most cases their names appear in the narrative.

In the final chapter of this book I have discussed the report of the Royal Commissioner, Mr Justice Lowe, who was appointed under wide terms of reference to inquire into the circumstances of the raids. I have been critical of the fact that he did not censure successive Federal governments and the Air Boards for failure to properly equip the R.A.A.F. in this forward area. It has since been pointed out to me by Sir Charles Lowe that his report stressed his inability to inquire into such matters. He had to restrict it to events which threw light upon the raid itself and measures to be taken to prevent a recurrence.

D OUGLAS L OCKWOOD

War had never been fought on Australian soil before the Japanese attacked Darwin on 19 February 1942.Australians had never before seen bombs fall within their borders or seen civilians lose their lives at the hands of the enemy. Inside one hour, two hundred and forty-three Australians died as a task force of Japanese bombers and Zero-fighters emerged from behind the clouds destroying most military targets, twenty aircraft and eight ships. The events leading up to and following the attack are often puzzling and shrouded with controversy as the Australian government was forced to deal with the possibility of further attacks, if not an invasion.

Only a handful of writers have tackled the subject since Darwin was first attacked, Lockwoods account being one of the most reliable and accurate. The Official War History only gives the barest outline of the events of that day and all other sources were written well after the event. Australia Under Attack is a comprehensive report on the bombing of Darwin by a writer who was there himself when the bombs fell. Lockwood later interviewed Australians and Americans who served in Darwin, as well as Japanese servicemen who fought in the battle, including Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, who planned and led the attack.

Although crippling damage was inflicted on the Australian Navy, and hundreds of lives were lost at the hands of the Japanese, few Australians at the time even knew about the attack. The bombing was the main story of the day, but little coverage followed as the war began to look bad for the Allies, and tough competition for newspaper space was the result. Rommels forces were streaming across North Africa, the Russian front was ablaze and the battle of the Atlantic was at its height. Closer to home, Singapore had fallen to the Japanese only four days earlier resulting in the capture of 17,000 Allied and Australian troops. The Pacific War was only ten weeks old when the Darwin bombings began and reporting details of the event would have badly damaged Australian morale considering the stress Allied forces were already under. This attitude is reflected in the actions of the government which announced soon after the attack that only seventeen people had died.

In fact, the attack on Darwin was only the beginning of a series of Japanese bombing raids across all of northern Australia that lasted almost until the end of the war. A total of ninety-seven air raids hit the top end of the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland. Darwin experienced most of these attacks. Between February 1942 and November 1943 there were over sixty-four raids on Darwin, crippling the ability of the city to serve as an airfield or naval base for Allied counter-attacks. Across the Northern Territory all military targets were attacked at Millingimbi, Port Patterson and Katherine. In Queensland, Townsville remained one of the only functioning airfields and was raided three times in addition to the nine attacks to Horn Island over the Torres Strait. Although civilian casualties were light in these subsequent raids, Australians were still generally uninformed so morale was maintained while rumours of invasion lingered.