Darwin, 1942: Remembering Australia's 'Pearl Harbor' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Duncan Kennedy
BBC News, Darwin

It's 70 years since Japanese bombers swooped on Darwin, in northern Australia, sinking Allied ships in the harbour and killing hundreds of people. For years the attack was rarely mentioned, but now the story is finally being told.

If 7 December 1941 is "a date that will live in infamy" for the United States, then 19 February 1942 is surely one that will join it in the annals of shame for Australia.

That was the day, just 10 weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the same carrier-based Japanese force turned its attention to the small northern town of Darwin, with equally calamitous results.

But the world remembers one and barely recalls the other.

The seven-volume Official History of the Australian Army in World War II devotes only two pages to the attack on Darwin.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17073472




Largely forgotten, in part, because authorities played down the news to prevent panic -- another example of truth being the first casualty of war.

Guess who helped draw attention to the Darwin raid recently ? (See the article!)

[sofa king]

1. It didn't end there, either.

Wrecking Darwin and running down the ABDACOM naval forces in the area essentially gave the Japanese an open door to the Indian Ocean.

The following month, Admiral Nagumo's six-carrier strike group continued on into the Indian Ocean and all the way to Colombo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), wrecked British commerce, supply, and repair facilities in the region, sank an old British aircraft carrier and sent two more running, and then effectively slammed the door shut behind them, ensuring that no British naval forces or troops would find their way back into the Pacific for about three years.

But the attacks also did a lot to steel the resolve of British subjects around the globe, and ensured that the Australians and New Zealanders would provide a disproportionate amount of troops and effort in the Pacific War, particularly in New Guinea, which ultimately proved to be one of the keys to Japan's demise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_raid

[Journeyman]

2. Recently, the attack was a central plot point in the film "Australia". . .

the 2008 Kidman-Jackman historical romance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_(movie)