Darwin's Attack Analysis

During the second world war, the Japanese attacked Australia with one of the most brutal air raids since the attack of Pearl Harbour. At the time of the attack Darwin was the largest town in Northern Australia and therefore was a key defensive position against the Japanese’s plans to capture the Dutch East Indies (Allied with Australia). On the 19th of February 1942, the first of 64 raids was launched into Darwin putting many allied lives and artillery at risk. Over the course of the raids, from 19th of February 1942 to the 12th of November 1943 Australia and its allies lost about 900 people, 77 aircraft and several ships(Wells & Mulholland 2015). Many military and civilian facilities were destroyed, although it could have been much worse

There were many allied vessels waiting in the Darwin harbour, however this was not very useful as the Japanese attacked by plane, making our artillery vulnerable(Salmon 2005). Our military forces should have been more prepared for this as there were some clear signs of a Japanese attack. On the 1st of January, 1942, a Japanese submarine was detected in the harbour. On the 20th of January, another Japanese submarine was sunk by HMAS Deloraine, 80 kilometres from Darwin(Salmon 2005). On the 28th of January, Japanese aircraft were spotted 3 kilometres from the centre of Darwin making observations of the harbour to see how their attack should be pursued(Wells 2015). Despite these sightings and engagements, Australia did little to prepare or guard against an intense Japanese attack. Just minutes before the attack occured, Australian Naval signals were warned several times about suspicious aircraft within the vicinity. There was a regular warning distributed at 9:15am, a similar one at 9:35am and a critical warning at 9:58am which were all ignored leaving Australia completely unprepared for when the Japanese made their move a few minutes later(Salmon