Topic summary
Bombing of Darwin
Australia
United States
JapanFrederick Scherger
Mitsuo Fuchida
18 antiaircraft guns
1 destroyer
1 seaplane tender
2 sloops
4 minesweepers/corvettes
4 boom defence vessels
9 merchant ships/transports
1 hospital ship
23 auxiliary vessels
12 pearling luggers
4 aircraft carriers
2 heavy cruisers
1 light cruiser
7 destroyers
3 submarines
300–400 wounded
30 aircraft destroyed
11 vessels sunk
3 vessels grounded
25 ships damaged
1 POW
34 carrier aircraft damaged
On 19 February 1942, 188 Japanese aircraft, in two separate raids, bombed the Australian town of Darwin, ships in Darwin Harbour and the town's two airfields in an attempt to prevent the Allies from using them as bases to contest the invasion of Timor and Java during World War II. This was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia.
Darwin was very lightly defended relative to the size of this attack, and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses upon Allied forces at little cost to themselves. The urban areas of Darwin also suffered some damage from the raids and there were a number of civilian casualties. More than half of Darwin's civilian population left the area permanently, before or immediately after the attack.
The two Japanese air raids were the first, and largest, of more than 100 air raids against Australia during 1942–1943. The event happened just four days after the Fall of Singapore, when a combined Commonwealth force surrendered to the Japanese, the largest surrender in British history.