The Bombing of Darwin occurred on the 19th of February 1942. This day is recorded as the first and largest single attack that was made on Australia. On that one day 242 Japanese aircraft were sent over to the top of Australia to attack the ships in Darwin's harbour, and to also attack the towns 2 airfields. By doing this Japan were aiming to stop the Allies from using the airfields as bases to fight Japans invasions on Timor and Java.

At this time Darwin was only a small town with limited military supplies and resources, and despite the importance of Darwin's defence, the city was poorly defended. After the burst of the Pacific War in December 1941, Darwin set out to strengthen their defences. They had planned to move their armies that were stationed in the town and move them to the Dutch East Indies in hope to strengthen the Islands of Ambon and Timor. Then they put in place an improvised plan to support the Philippines, as well as the Dutch East Indies and that plan was completed in Washington on the 20th of December 1941 by the U.S General Army staff, they then put in place the idea of making Darwin the home and base for the transhipment efforts to supplies the landing forces with supplies for people in Brisbane.

The first raid consisted of 4 Japanese aircraft carriers launched 188 aircraft during the morning of September 19th. There were 3 different types of bombs used that morning, 36 A6M Zero fighters, 71 D3A “Val” dive bombers and 81 B5N “Kate” torpedo bombers.
All aircrafts were launched by 8:45am, with the hope to destroy Darwin’s ships and the towns facilities.
On their way to darwin their Zero plane shot down a US navy PBY Catalina and bombed a USAAC C-47 sky train on the ground near Melville Island.
At 9:35am a message was sent using a pedal radio to the Amalgamated Wireless Postal Radio Station, telling them that a large number of aircraft were flying overhead and moving Southward. This message was sent from the Bathurst Islands by Father McGrath while on a Sacred Heart mission. The message was then re-sent to the Royal Air Force Operations at 9:37am. It was not then until roughly 10am because they RAAF officers had actually falsely judged what and whom the aircraft belonged to. They the determined that the aircrafts belonged to the Allies and were returning to Darwin after being forced to abort their flight to Java via Kupang, West Timor.
So the Japanese didn’t actually arrive over Darwin until 9:58am. The first ship to be attacked was the HMAS Gunbar, it was bombed by 9 Zero fighters. The Japanese were the diving in and bombing as well as ground level bombing of Darwin’s harbour. 3 of Darwin’s war ships were sunken and 5 merchant vessels, as well as additional damage to 10 other ships. These attacks lasting 40 minutes long. The ships sunk and exploded were damaged at the wharf in Darwin’s harbour, killing 21 labourers.
It wasn’t just the harbour was raided, the Japanese had also severely damaged the towns army barracks and oil tanks, doing this to Darwin’s defence and resources meant that they had be sent backwards in their progress and had to rebuild a lot of their defences. Evidently pushing Japan further ahead.
The second wave hit just before midday, the towns air raid sirens we set off at 11:58am, of course sending the town into another frenzy. In this raid they used 27 G3M and 27 G4M land-based bombers. This time they did even more damage to the RAAF base! Killing 6 RAAF personnel. The Japanese also dropped several other small bombs in the late afternoon, sinking another few ships.

This was a tragic event that will be carried on through out our history, those horrific bombs killing many people and destroying so many of our war crafts. Hopefully we wont have to experience something like this ever again, and if we do we shall be more equipped.