I had no idea ..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17073472

God bless those who stayed by their posts and did what they could.

In for a surprise the next time any country tries to attack Darwin

Bill there are people in Australia that have no idea Darwin was bombed. Even the town of Katherine, 300km south of Darwin, was hit.

quote:

Originally posted by Bakes:
Bill there are people in Australia that have no idea Darwin was bombed. Even the town of Katherine, 300km south of Darwin, was hit.

Sad but true.

We don't teach enough of our own history in schools for people to realise just how knife-edged the situation in New Guinea was at the time and what the consequences for Australia was going to be if the invader's advance was was not stopped there.

We immortalise the Kokoda battles & treat the Darwin attack as a footnote in history rather than it emphasising how important the Kokoda battles were and the consequences of losing there.

General Macarthur's PR machine of the day slanted the world's perception of what really happened in that theatre, who did what, and that PR slant consigned Darwin to being a footnote.

It changes the perception of today's generations when they realise that Darwin was much more heavily attacked than Pearl Harbour.

Thanks for posting the link. As a "yank" I've never heard of that attack.

quote:

Originally posted by Bakes:
Bill there are people in Australia that have no idea Darwin was bombed. Even the town of Katherine, 300km south of Darwin, was hit.

It is stunning how many people don't know about the Japanese attack on Australia. Does no one read a history book or even watch the history channel????

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:

quote:

Originally posted by Bakes:
Bill there are people in Australia that have no idea Darwin was bombed. Even the town of Katherine, 300km south of Darwin, was hit.

It is stunning how many people don't know about the Japanese attack on Australia. Does no one read a history book or even watch the history channel????

Well you have to remember that much of the information was suppressed for many years!!

Matt
Why would the info be surpressed?

If you visit Darwin about the only history one hears of is the Japanese bombing of it.

Why does no one know of Darwin's bombing but most have heard of Pearl Harbour? Pretty obvious, because the bombing of Darwin was militarily insignificant. Especially in the strategic outcomes of the War in the Pacific.

Most would not know, Japanese midget submarines attacked Sydney Harbour as well.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenr:
Matt
Why would the info be surpressed?

I believe that there were a number of reasons for suppression and misinfromation - although I am no war historian. I understand that information about the main Darwin raids were underplayed by the authorities at the time, to cover-up some poor leadership. There was also suppression so that the attacks in the north did not cause widespread panic in the more inhabited south.

The actual extent of air raids into Australia was only released many years later...

that is my understanding of some of it.

see the air raids here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...lia,_1942%E2%80%9343

When we moved to Darwin the family was driving down Amy Johnson drive and my young bloke asked "who's Amy Johnson dad?" I said in my best I know everything voice "well mate, She stood on Darwin warf with a bren gun and singled handedly fought off the japanese in ww2." He seemed quite happy with that explanation and I though no more of it until he came home from his new school pretty pissed. Turns out the class was talking about famous aviators and the teacher asked if anyone knew who Amy Johnson was. My boy (wanting to impress) put up his hand and regaled the class with her daring exploits in WW2

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:


Why does no one know of Darwin's bombing but most have heard of Pearl Harbour? Pretty obvious, because the bombing of Darwin was militarily insignificant. Especially in the strategic outcomes of the War in the Pacific.

He He
the history of WWII in the western pacific in the eyes of the free world was the history of the day as written & promoted by Gen MacArthur.

Darwin was not however militarily insignificant in the eyes of the invader.
It was their perception of a major supplyline link to the OZ defense of PNG......and a hope that it would soak up military assets defending Darwin against further attacks & reduce assets being sent to the defense of PNG.
Correct in reality, or not, Darwin was perceived as militarily significant by the aggressor.

there was a lot of political censorship & suppression of war news at the time.
ie
The Australian public was not told that aussie troops were fighting the 'Vichy' French in Nth Africa..........because France was an ally in the public eyes & Gov't of the day didn't think the public was capable of understanding the difference between free french troops & Vichy French troops.....so they simply kept it out of the news.

Anyone with interest can read all about it in the war histories of the units involved
ie
2nd 31st Battalion
( the first deployment of volunteer aussie troops into europe & formed from volunteers in NSW & S.Aust..........
FWIW ......of the 1000 men who left only 16 survived to come home..........longstanding ex National RSL President Bruce Ruxton was a 2nd31st company cook for most of his war career IIRC .
BTW , the detailed war diary of one of those survivors, a non-com officer ( Weapons Specialist Sgt, IIRC) is held in the National War Museum in Canberra. )

&
as Matt has said , the Gov't of the day wanted to play down the extent of the attack on Darwin to the population in the south.
- minimise any panic
- play down the poor leadership strategy that
Nth Australia was not actually defended very well at the time, due to an incorrect risk assessment ( not a good look in the domestic politics of the time).

Sheesh John, be fair, the history of Darwin is Cyclone Tracy and the Japanese attack in WW II.
Most of the Oz population only learnt about the extent of the bombing of Darwin as a footnote to the Devastation of Cyclone Tracy.
ie
NT & Feds putting Cyclone Tracy in a context of :-
" we rebuilt Darwin after the devastation of the Japanese Bombing & we will do it again after "Tracy"

At that point more than 80 % of the Oz population said
" Shit , Darwin was bombed really badly in WW II..... I never knew".

Then promptly forgot about it until the History Channel had programs on it as part of its WW II series of retrospectives.

........if it wasn't for the History Channel >90% of the current Oz public & >99.9999% of the current world population would still have little or no knowledge or memory of it.

Very different political perspectives at the time between Pearl Harbour & Darwin attacks
Pearl Harbour was publicly highlighted to bring the US into WW II as justification in US domestic politics & became well known history.

Australia was already at war ......extensive publication of bad news of domestic war damage & its actual extent was not wanted. Darwin became a footnote in history.
The extent of the damage and military significance had nothing to do with it.

Lots of WW II censorship decisions were simply carried forward post-war .
- Gov't would have had to acknowledge they had not told the public the whole story ( not a good look in any domestic politics)
- it was old history ( people wanted to look forwards to good times not backwards to the bad times )
- The censored version lived on as public history/knowledge & nobody could be bothered in correcting it , or reviewing it , until much more recent times when retrospective documentaries on WW II became popular and every aspect of WW II had been turned over 3 times by everyone on the commercial war history bandwaggon.

2c

The reasons for my saying the bombing was insignificant strategically. JMOs.

Did the bombing in any way aid the Japanese in the invasion of Australia?

No they did not attempt to invade. They were stopped on the Kokoda pass battles and the Coral See Naval battles. Darwin would have been insignificant to the Coral Sea Jap fleet anyway. Why not from Indonesia? No idea.

Did the bombing of one destroyer and a handful of minor ships in Darwin Harbour severely harm the naval forces defending Australia?

No.

Did the bombing harm the supply logistics of goods to SE Asia?

No. Really how practical would it have been to freight very large quantities of goods across an entire continent and then load them on ships at Darwin, compared to loading them on ships at Southern ports in the first place.

The same reason Darwin is NOT the port to SE Asia today for the whole of Australia. Because it is more costly than using Southern ports in the first place, other than stuff from the NT and live cows and similar exports.

Had a Japanese land invasion occurred?

Realistically if large forces were landed at Darwin, other than being a nuisance entrenched in the North, they would have found it impractical to fight and move the many THOUSANDS of kilometres over savannah, scrub and desert to more populated areas. The Japs supply lines simply could not have handled it.

Instead an invasion by a fleet near Brisbane or North Queensland or Sydney, how much easier would that be.

Did the Japs consider Darwin significant?

Probably as they sent bombers to bomb it many times. As was posted above.


The reason the Darwin and NT bombings are memorable is not their strategic significance or lack of it, but because it was the first time Australia was bombed and attacked on land.

A different war but ...

Few people would also know German raiders attacked shipping off the coasts of Australia including Bass Strait and off shore at Melbourne and Sydney and other ports in WW1.

Try this little lot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokoda_Track_campaign

Absolutely agree with you John that militarily Darwin was rather insignificant to us in impact , in reality. But not that the Aggressor did not think it was significant .
It wasn't about intent to invade Darwin, with the bombing as a prelude , it was about Japanese perceptions of supplyline interruption to the allies defense efforts in PNG & instilling fear in the Oz population about a 'potential" invasion to soak up military assets to increase defense of the Oz mainland.
They were stopped on land in PNG & on the water in the Coral Sea, no one really knows what would have happened if they had succeeded and won PNG.

They didn't & the aggression wound back from there.

Strategic analysis however says that for all the land they had conquered in SE Asia they were still short of iron resources & at that time only Lang Hancock knew about Iron Ore deposits in WA ( Dowds Hill) and kept his mouth shut thru the nationalisation of the iron & steel industry in WW II . The Oz Gov't & the rest of the world was only aware at the time of Oz Iron Ore deposits in S.Aust.( primarily at Whyalla)............and thats all the Japanese knew too ( at the time).

fact of the matter is you had all those airfields down the stewart highway and the repeated bombing of the port of darwin would have made it very difficult for them to function properly... Stopping the Allied bombers was the strategy ..

What was the BBC's point of the article ? To show another photo of the White House idiot ??
WWI showed the Aussies never to trust other countries [UK] to lead their troops .
WWII showed the Aussies that they could be invaded also !
Minerals ? we could now add titanium to the list ,OZ is a major supplier of the metal today.

Its a pretty extensive list of minerals now.
Oz might be very old land and not have particularly high surface productivity, but she has been blessed with quite a variety of rich mineral deposits .
from coal, iron, aluminium,manganese, titanium etc to uranium.

The one of most value at the time of WW II tho was the iron needed for construction & weapons.

A certain Oz politician was given the nickname "Pig Iron Bob" for selling iron to the Japanese pre-WWII ,that his opponents & the press of the day made much of in claiming it was used to make weapons used against us.

quote:

Originally posted by DenisB:
... and not have particularly high surface productivity, ....

Actually Australia is one of the most EFFICIENT agricultural producing countries in the world.

Except our farmers can not compete with the huge subsidies given to European and American farmers.

Whereas our farmers have to put up with high taxes to support inefficient unionised manufacturing industries (which get a lot of gov't support) and little to no real assistance from gov't.

Just saying ....

Darwin was not the only place attacked in WWII,, Broome was attacked as well,,, I don't think bombed much but it was a big refueling stop and air/water planes and many were straffed and burned in the port and many US planes were destroyed at the airfield. WWII is the only time I believe that there has been an attack on its homeland,, just like the USA in the past 150 years. Australian troops have been involved in almost every conflict since the Boer war and has served their country well. I was surprised when I visited Australia how little info was available. Here in the US we have memorials and mueseums about the wars everywhere...

quote:

Originally posted by drwes:
Darwin was not the only place attacked in WWII,, Broome was attacked as well,,, I don't think bombed much but it was a big refueling stop and air/water planes and many were straffed and burned in the port and many US planes were destroyed at the airfield. WWII is the only time I believe that there has been an attack on its homeland,, just like the USA in the past 150 years. Australian troops have been involved in almost every conflict since the Boer war and has served their country well. I was surprised when I visited Australia how little info was available. Here in the US we have memorials and mueseums about the wars everywhere...

Not sure where you went but in my home state and others we have a memorial in nearly every town....

I was in Brisbane,,,Darwin, Cairnes[ there was a display on the seawall boardwalk there], Gove, Numblawar,, sp.? The display on the seawalk in Cairnes,, my last day there, is what got me interested in the history. Like I said,, the Aussie military has been involved in just about every conflict since the Boer wars and the history of those is interesting to read,, I guess I am a history buff,, if not reading hunting history in Africa,, history in general.

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:

quote:

Originally posted by DenisB:
... and not have particularly high surface productivity, ....

Actually Australia is one of the most EFFICIENT agricultural producing countries in the world.

Except our farmers can not compete with the huge subsidies given to European and American farmers.

Whereas our farmers have to put up with high taxes to support inefficient unionised manufacturing industries (which get a lot of gov't support) and little to no real assistance from gov't.

Just saying ....

Agree John, our farmers are very efficient, they have to be to survive.

overall as a proportion of our continent's surface area we have a relatively low proportion of highly fertile areas.

this comes from the age of our landmass , as one of the oldest remnant landmasses on earth our nutrients & essential chemical elements for plant growth have been eroded & leached away for longer than other landmasses..........this also results (in part) in the poorer productivity of our adjacent oceans .

we enjoy a stable landmass with no volcanic activity & virtually no seismic activity, but the price of geological stability is its age & lower overall productivity. We do have high productivity in "pockets" tho, but we have this habit of covering good agricultural land with bricks, concrete & asphalt

Our brothers over the 'ditch' in NZ have a much younger landmass which is still evolving , they enjoy a much higher productivity level than we do...........but have to put up with the volcanic & seismic activity .........their adjacent oceans are more productive too.

quote:

Originally posted by drwes:
I was in Brisbane,,,Darwin, Cairnes[ there was a display on the seawall boardwalk there], Gove, Numblawar,, sp.? The display on the seawalk in Cairnes,, my last day there, is what got me interested in the history. Like I said,, the Aussie military has been involved in just about every conflict since the Boer wars and the history of those is interesting to read,, I guess I am a history buff,, if not reading hunting history in Africa,, history in general.

War memorials are not only in every town and city of Australia but in many places around the world too..

An example...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villers-Bretonneux
http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/villers-bretonneux/

As an Australian a trip to Villers-Brettonneux is a moving experience.

Very sobering experience to find a memorial in the most unlikely spots when in Oz. I was at 80 mile beach south of Broome in Western Australia recently and I saw a memorial by the track leading to the beach. Makes you pause and think.

It would be hard to find an Aussie town without a war memorials to WW1, WW2 or all the other wars. Usually the one memorial is used for them all.

Also while a visitor might not realise, often a grove of trees along a road, by a school or similar is a memorial to the fallen soldiers. A grove of trees locally was one, one for each fallen soldier from the town. Shocked to see they have all been cut down recently. I hope they are replanted.

When heading north into Carnavon Western Australia there is a memorial drive dedicated to the sailors of HMS Sydney which was sunk by the German raider Komoral? Over 600 palm trees, one for every sailor lost. Driving past 600 palm trees gives a tangible sense of lost lives.
Pete.