Peter Grose’s (2009) An Awkward Truth relives the bombing of Darwin harbor on February 19, 1942, in the early weeks of the Pacific War. It remains the single deadliest event in Australian history—“no cyclone, bushfire, train or plane crash, or flood” killed as many people on Australian soil or in its waters.
The same Japanese pilot who led the attack on U.S. forces in Pearl Harbour on 8 December 1941 also led the attack on Darwin harbour from the same aircraft carriers, supplied by the same air crews, with a larger contingent of air fighters. Captain Mitsuo Fuchida raided Pearl Harbour with 183 air fighters, and added another five aircraft to attack Darwin two months later. More bombs fell on Darwin than Pearl Harbour. More ships were sunk in Darwin than Pearl Harbour. Yet, fewer lives were lost. In Pearl Harbour, 2,402 people were killed. In Darwin, first reports indicated that 19 people died. However, Grose cites the Lowe Commission of 1943 which agreed to “about 250” lives lost.
At 9:58am on February 19, 1942, Japanese fighter pilots struck Darwin for 42 minutes. At 11:58am 54 aircraft made a second attack, lasting 22 minutes. More lives would have been lost if it had not been for the evacuation of women and children at the commencement of the Pacific War in mid-December 1941. At the time, Darwin’s population was 5,800 with 1,066 women and about 900 children. All but 65 women were evacuated. Grose adds that the low death count was due to “an exemplary display of heroism by a tiny handful of U.S. Army Air Corps fighter pilots” (reinforcing the Dutch East Indies at the time), the “magnificent reply by [the destroyer] USS Peary in Darwin harbour” and “the heroism of the Australian rescuers who braved burning oil, strafing aircraft, and huge explosions from ships in Darwin harbor to pull their comrades to safety.”
Unlike Pearl Harbour, whose attack was a complete surprise, Australia expected a strike on Darwin due to its proximity to Timor. Grose recounts the political tensions between Japan and the U.S. and Europe leading to the attack on several locations across the Pacific. He also documents what happened during the two attacks on Darwin on February 19 and the confusion in the brief period between the attacks—i.e. what didn’t happen.
Grose documents three main failures to save more lives: (1) the lack of military preparation; (2) nobody anticipated an attack of the scale and ferocity of that day; and (3) “a massive failure of leadership.”
Over the next 21 months, Darwin “faced no fewer than 64 attacks by Japanese bombers” ending on 12 November 1943, and another 33 attacks across northern Australia.
The attempted attack by a Japanese midget submarine on Sydney Harbour on 31 May 1942, three-and-a-half months after the Darwin raid, resulted in 27 Australian lives lost. In total, defending against attacks on their nation, in all of Australia’s history, less than 280 lives have been lost. Australian deaths have been overwhelming in fighting wars in other countries to assist their coalition partners.
An Awkward Truth received great acclaim—and deservedly so for his easy-to-read narrative and compassionate account of the truth of the bombing—with facts, figures, and humour.
MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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