Bombing of Darwin

On the morning of 19 February 1942, four days after the fall of Singapore, Japanese aircraft attacked Darwin, then the main Allied base on Australia's northern coast. The first wave flew from carriers in the Timor Sea, and a second raid by land-based bombers followed before noon. Ships crowded in the harbour were sunk or wrecked, an ammunition ship exploded alongside the main wharf, and the town and airfields were heavily damaged. It was the first and largest of dozens of air raids on northern Australia over the next two years. Fearing invasion, part of the population fled south in disorder.

For decades the raid was a half forgotten episode in Australian memory, overshadowed by the Kokoda campaign and by embarrassment over the panic and looting that followed it, which the Lowe Royal Commission examined in 1942. Wartime censorship played down the damage, and the first official statement gave a death toll far below the figure later research settled on. The anniversary was declared a national day of observance in Australia in 2011. Historians still debate whether Japan ever seriously intended to invade Australia; the Japanese records suggest the navy floated the idea and the army rejected it, and the raid is generally read as a strike to protect the simultaneous invasion of Timor.