Bombing of Darwin Pt 2

 

Good morning all here is part two about the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942.

                 A Coastwatcher using radio 

Coastwatchers, often civilians and largely unknown and unsung proved to be a vital part of our war effort.

Forty-three minutes before the attack John Gibble, a Coastwatcher on Melville Island, radioed that a large number of aircraft was flying towards Darwin. A few minutes later Father John McGarth of the Catholic mission station on Bathurst Island, radioed Lou Curnock of the Darwin Australian Amalgamated Wireless station reporting the same thing. Curnock immediately transmitted this to the RAAF.

These warnings were not acted on.

                   A Kittyhawk P40

The RAAF Operations Centre was not alarmed, despite the direction the planes were travelling they thought it was American P40 Kittyhawks which due to bad weather had to return from a sortie for Timor. In fact, 9 out of the 10 Kittyhawks were approaching the airfield as the Japanese Zeros flew in and the Kittyhawks were shot down immediately, with four US pilots being killed.

The airbase was therefore unable to mount and counterattack, it was left to the anti-aircraft batteries to defend the town, although they kept up a continuous barrage from their gun emplacements only on Zero was shot down.

                     A Japanese Zero 
 

The main target for the first attack was Darwin’s harbour, as there were upwards of 45 ships in port, including the US destroyer Peary which sunk within minutes of the attack starting, taking 80 lives with it. Also sunk was the US transport Meigs with only 2 lives lost.  

The Australian ship Neptuna which had been a passage vessel was hit and it was loaded with explosives, so it blew with a terrifying blast, taking 46 lives with it. There were also 5 merchant ships sunk.