Darwin WWII

[tropicbreeze 743]

Today there's a commemoration of the 79th anniversary of the first bombing of Darwin in WWII being attended by representatives from the US and Japan. It was the same Japanese fleet that had bombed Pearl Harbour, then headed south west and bombed Darwin.

As a result Darwin became a big military base, not only for Australia but also the US. Aircraft based in Darwin flew sorties against the Japanese across the Indonesian archipelago, some entailing 16 hour round trips. A lot of training was done and many islands around the coast were used as bombing ranges.

There's lots of relics and wrecks in the area from that period and not long back I found one that may be of interest to some people here. It's the wreckage of a US Liberator B-24. On 17 January 1945 the aircraft was involved in live bombing practice over Quail Island to the west of Darwin. There's two theories on what happened. During a low level run one of the exploding bombs damaged the plane which attempted to limp back to its base. But it went in 10 to 15 kms short of Darwin killing all on board. The second theory was that many of the pilots used to engage in low level buzzing of the coast line. This time the pilot may have lost control and ploughed into the ground. Whichever it was, the result was the same.

The plaque commemorates those that died.

[amh 469]

Very interesting story and photos, thank you for sharing.

Edited February 19 by amh

[sandgroper 1,180]

More bombs fell on Darwin than Pearl Harbour. 

[HtownPalms 269]

I watch all types of WW2 documentaries and never heard about the Darwin bombing. I never knew the Japanese squadron kept flying south to do more damage. Unfortunately unless the story focuses on America, Germany, Japan, England, Russia, or a German conquered country a countries story kind of gets glossed over in a lot of these documentaries. 

 

[amh 469]

13 minutes ago, HtownPalms said:

I watch all types of WW2 documentaries and never heard about the Darwin bombing. I never knew the Japanese squadron kept flying south to do more damage. Unfortunately unless the story focuses on America, Germany, Japan, England, Russia, or a German conquered country a countries story kind of gets glossed over in a lot of these documentaries. 

 

The non-US based war in the pacific is very overlooked. The Australians and New Zealanders were very involved.

Another example is the coastwatchers, who are almost unheard of in America, but were extremely important to the war effort.

[HtownPalms 269]

I agree completely. That has to be very frustrating to have your efforts in such a global war glossed over. Outside of Pearl Harbor, Midway, Iwo Jima, and the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki not much is talked about on the Pacific front. Which is a shame because not only did a lot of men die defending freedom from tyranny but thousands of Pacific islander civilians were also killed. 

I talk about World War 2 and quickly realize how little people know about that war which is surprising to me. I believe a lot of Americans think we won the war by ourselves. They especially don't like hearing about how Hitler was so impressed with how the US government was so efficient at eradicating native Americans that he named his personal train America. That the Nazis got the idea for death marches from the trail of tears. But hey we were the hero in WW2 so why do people need to know those details? 

[Palmarum 2,364]

Great bit of history there. I hope some measures are taken so that the remains do not deteriorate completely. I had first heard about the Darwin bombing in middle school, as my American History teacher was such a great military historian. He had entire presentations that showed a day-by-day activity of the war, what happened and where, each day of the war involving every nation and locale, starting with the Japanese invasion of China and even the Spanish Civil War.

I am a huge military history buff and WWII is often the main focus of what I research. Even today there are new discoveries and info released on WWII. I find some of the hidden corners that are not so well known just as fascinating as the main threads of history. There is always more out there to learn and discover.

Ryan