Bombing of Darwin
The Bombing of Darwin, also known as the Battle of Darwin, on 19 February 1942 was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. On that day, 188 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.
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.
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.
Background
In 1942, Darwin—the capital of the Northern Territory—was a small town with limited civil and military infrastructure. Due to its strategic position in northern Australia, the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force had constructed bases near the town in the 1930s and the early years of World War II. Darwin's pre-war population was 5,800.As early as August 1941, Darwin had been a key in the South Pacific air ferry route designed to avoid routes through the Japanese mandate in the central Pacific for bomber reinforcement of the Philippines. The first flight to use the route occurred when nine B-17D bombers of the 14th Bombardment Squadron left Hawaii on 5 September and passed through Darwin 10–12 September. By October 1941, plans were underway to position fuel and supplies with two ships, including, being chartered and actively engaged in that purpose when war came. By November 1941 Australia had agreed to allow the establishment of training bases, maintenance facilities, munitions storage, communications, and improvement of airfields, including at Darwin, to meet the needs of the B-17 bombers in Australia.
Following the outbreak of the Pacific War in early December 1941, Darwin's defences were strengthened. In line with plans developed before the war, several Australian Army and RAAF units stationed in the town were sent to the Netherlands East Indies to strengthen the defences of the islands of Ambon and Timor. An improvised plan for support of the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies was completed in Washington on 20 December 1941 by the U.S. Army General Staff. It envisioned Darwin as the hub of transshipment efforts to supply those forces by landing supplies at Brisbane, shipping overland to Darwin, and onward by air and blockade-running ships. In reality, transport to Darwin by sea was necessary. Supplies and shipping intended both to build the Darwin base and to support the Java and Philippine forces were gathered in Darwin and the vicinity. In the two months before the air raids, all but 2,000 civilians were evacuated from the town. Japanese submarines I-121 and I-123 laid mines off Darwin in January 1942.
By mid-February 1942, Darwin had become an important Allied base for the defence of the NEI. The Japanese had captured Ambon, Borneo, and Celebes between December 1941 and early-February 1942. Landings on Timor were scheduled for 20 February, and an invasion of Java was planned to take place shortly afterwards. In order to protect these landings from Allied interference, the Japanese military command decided to conduct a major air raid on Darwin. On 10 February a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft overflew the town, and identified an aircraft carrier, five destroyers, and 21 merchant ships in Darwin Harbour, as well as 30 aircraft at the town's two airfields.
Among the ships in harbour were those returned the morning before the attack from the convoy escorted by involved in the failed effort to reinforce Timor. Houston had departed for Java but left Mauna Loa and the Meigs which had attempted to transport Australian troops to Timor and the U.S. Army transports Portmar and Tulagi which had embarked a U.S. infantry regiment at Darwin.
Prelude
Opposing forces
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. The air forces stationed in and near the town comprised No. 12 Squadron, which was equipped with CAC Wirraway advanced trainers, and No. 13 Squadron which operated Lockheed Hudson light bombers. 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. 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. 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. In addition to the Australian forces, ten United States Army Air Forces Curtiss P-40 Warhawks were passing through Darwin en route to Java on the day of the attack. The P-40 pilots were largely inexperienced in combat.| Tons | Ship name | Comment | Deaths | |
| 1 | 9155 | HMAHS Manunda | Hospital ship | 12 |
| 2 | 7358 | Freight transport, sunk | 1 | |
| 3 | 6891 | Tanker, sunk | 2 | |
| 4 | 6683 | Troopship, sunk | 2 | |
| 5 | 5952 | Freight transport, sunk | 36 | |
| 6 | 5551 | Freight transport, beached, refloated 6 April | 1 | |
| 7 | 5436 | USAT Mauna Loa | Freight transport, sunk | |
| 8 | 4265 | Freight transport, beached, refloated 17 April | ||
| 9 | 3476 | Depot ship | ||
| 10 | 3289 | Freight transport, 14,000 drums aviation gasoline, damaged | ||
| 11 | 2281 | Freight transport, beached, refloated 20 February | ||
| 12 | 1849 | Kelat | Coal hulk, sunk 24 February | |
| 13 | 1308 | Seaplane tender, damaged | 14 | |
| 14 | 1190 | Destroyer, sunk | 88 | |
| 15 | 1060 | Sloop | 3 | |
| 16 | 1060 | Sloop | ||
| 17 | 1000 | Floating Dock | Floating dock | |
| 18 | 815 | Minesweeper | ||
| 19 | 815 | Minesweeper | ||
| 20 | 815 | Minesweeper | ||
| 21 | 815 | Minesweeper | ||
| 22 | 768 | Boom Defence Vessel | 1 | |
| 23 | 768 | Boom Defence Vessel | ||
| 24 | 768 | Boom Defence Vessel | ||
| 25 | 553 | Boom Defence Vessel | ||
| 26 | 550 | Oil Fuel Lighter No 1 | Lighter | |
| 27 | 525 | Boom Gate Vessel | 2 | |
| 28 | 480 | Coaster | 1 | |
| 29 | 448 | Boom Defence Vessel | ||
| 30 | 420 | Minesweeper | ||
| 31 | 418 | Minesweeper | ||
| 32 | 298 | Examination vessel | ||
| 33 | 292 | Tug | ||
| 34 | 118 | HMAS Kalaroo | Lighter | |
| 35 | 117 | Karalee | Lighter, sank 5 March | |
| 36 | 106 | Patrol boat | ||
| 37 | 68 | HMAS Mako | Patrol boat | |
| 38 | 60 | HMAS Chinampa | Ketch | |
| 39 | 57 | HMAS Malanda | Lugger | |
| 40 | 55 | Patrol boat | ||
| 41 | 45 | HMAS Winbah | Patrol boat | |
| 42 | 45 | Yampi Lass | Lighter | |
| 43 | 35 | Patrol boat | ||
| 44 | 34 | HMAS Coongoola | Patrol boat | |
| 45 | 21 | HMAS Arthur Rose | Lugger | |
| 46 | 21 | HMAS Griffioen | Lugger | |
| 47 | 21 | HMAS Ibis | Lugger | |
| 48 | 21 | Mars | Lugger | |
| 49 | 21 | HMAS Medic | Lugger | |
| 50 | 21 | Plover | Lugger | |
| 51 | 21 | HMAS Red Bill | Lugger | |
| 52 | 21 | HMAS St.Francis | Lugger | |
| 53 | 20 | HMAS Moruya | Lugger | |
| 54 | 19 | Lugger, Sunk | ||
| 55 | 15 | HMAS Kiara | Patrol boat | |
| 56 | 15 | HMAS Sulituan | Ketch | |
| 57 | 12 | HMAS Larrakia | Examination vessel |
A total of 65 Allied warships and merchant vessels were in Darwin harbour at the time of the raids. The warships included the United States Navy destroyer and seaplane tender. The RAN ships in port were the sloops and, corvettes and, auxiliary minesweepers and, patrol boat Coongoola, depot ship, examination vessel, lugger, and four boom-net ships. Several USN and Australian troopships were in the harbour along with a number of merchant vessels of varying sizes. Most of the ships in the harbour were anchored near each other, making them an easy target for air attack. Moreover, no plans had been prepared for how the ships should respond to an air raid.
In addition to the vessels in port, the American Army supply ships and Florence D., former Philippine vessels acquired as part of the South West Pacific Area command's permanent Army fleet earlier in February, were near Bathurst Island bound for the Philippines with arms and supplies on the morning of the raid.
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. This force comprised the aircraft carriers,,, and 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. 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.