Bombing Of Darwin Essay

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This Report Will Give You Information About The bombing Of Darwin Darwin is the capital city or the Northern Territory, and was bombed by the Japanese on February 19th 1942. Why did the event take place - During the 1930s Japan invaded and occupied large parts of China. By 1941 Japan also controlled Indochina (a federation of French colonies and protectorates in South East Asia). In December 1941 Japan bombed the Americans at Pearl Harbour and entered the Second World War. Within 10 weeks Japan controlled Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and the Australian territory of new Britain (Rabaul). The Japanese thought that Darwin was a threat because the Allies ( their enemies ) were able to regroup in Darwin Harbour which it was a key defensive position …show more content…

( This was the first time since he European settlement that mainland Australia had been attacked by a foreign enemy ) This first attack ( and the attack following ) was led by a man named Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese commander responsible for the attack of Pearl Harbour. The Japanese fighters attacked land targets and ships. Dive bombers attacked the ships in the harbour the military and civilian aerodromes and hospitals. Dove bombers were escorted by fighter planes to protect them against the Australian and allied planes. Australia's air defence was very limited the only defence they had were 10 planes that encounter the Japanese planes. As a result only 1 plane survived the first attack compared to the Japanese only losing one or two. Four Japanese aircrafts were stationed 350km from Darwin in the Timor sea. They send 2 air raids into Darwin Harbour which was which was full of allied shops and people. The Japanese attacked with 188 planes. The first attack lasted 40 minutes and the second came an hour later. Bombers attacked the Royal Australian Air Force Base at Parap ( lasting 25 minutes ). The two raids killed at least 243 Australians and allies. And about 400 were wounded with many ships and planes destroyed. On 16 December 1941 …show more content…

This caused people to think that Australia was going to be invaded and so they fled. Disorder and panic was happening so those left behind started loot! An interesting fact was that many Southern Australians were shielded from the facts by censorship and the distance of Darwin. The censorship was put in place to stop people thinking that the war was bad and invasion was possible. The government didn't want people to panic. Other Information - There is a debate about how many Japanese planes were shot down that say some people say only two were destroyed were others say four were shot down. As it turns out Japan had no firm planes on the bombing of Darwin nor did they have certain objectives but, at the time many Australians believed that the Japanese planned to invade Australia. Many experts today believe that the Japanese plan was to wipe out as much of Australia's and the allied forces air and sea defence in order to gain control of the resource rich countries of South East Asia and establish defences against any counter-attacks from the USA, Australia and any European powers in the

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