FASCINATING REMINDERS OF WWII IN THE TERRITORY

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Category: Reviews and Editorials

Most people think that Darwin, Broome (nine Mitsubishi Zeros attacked the town on March 3, 1942, killing 88 civilian and military personnel and destroying 22 aircraft with the loss of only two planes;)and Sydney (attacked by midget submarines on May 30/31 1942, and where 21 sailors on HMAS Kuttabul – a converted ferry – were killed, and again on June 8, shelling the Eastern suburbs before moving on to shell Newcastle, from a position off Stockton Beach) were the only Australian places attacked by the Japanese in WWII, but there was much more to the preliminary invasion than that.

In fact, the Australian mainland, offshore islands, domestic airspace and coastal shipping were attacked at least 97 times by the Japanese from February 1942 and November 1943. Wyndham, Horn Island, Derby, Townsville, Port Hedland, Onslow, Exmouth Gulf and Kalumburu all received attention from the Japanese war machine. But it was the Northern Territory that was the prime target.

The attack on Darwin came first and was the largest attack on mainland Australia. On February 19, 1942, 188 naval aircraft were launched from the carriers Akagi , Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu (all destroyed later at the Battle of Midway), and inflicted heavy damage on Darwin township and sank nine ships. A further raid by 54 land-based bombers did more damage to Darwin and knocked out 20 military aircraft. Casualties were 251 killed and between 300 and 400 wounded. The Japanese lost four planes.

But there were many other sites in the Territory which provided targets for the Japanese bombers, many because they were airfields or had infrastructure vital to the defence of the nation. Bathurst Island, Bagot, Horn Island, Larrakeyah, Katherine, Sattler Airfield, Vestey’s Meatworks in Darwin, Noonamah, Cox Peninsula, Livingstone Airfield (which housed a large number of American and Australian personnel for planes that included Kittyhawks and Spitfires), Batchelor Airfield, Pell Airfield (named after Major Floyd Pell, a member of General Macarthur’s staff who was killed in the first raid on Darwin), Coomalie Creek Airfield, Strauss Airfield (also known as Humpty Doo Strip), Hughes Airfield (all Australian personnel), the searchlight station at Ironstone, Millingimbi and Fenton Airfield. Yet the general awareness of just how widespread the Japanese attacks were is almost non-existent.

In 2007 the NT Government declared that a number of these places and buildings were heritage sites – the railway siding, store depot, cricket pitch and oval at Noonamah, 17½ Mile Camp, the RAAF C-47 Dakota wreck in Darwin Harbour and the Pell Airfield Engineering Workshop. Many of these are just off the Stuart Highway, so are merely easy but significant deviations from the main drag. Another place worth visiting is the Adelaide River War Cemetery, on the way out to Kakadu. This was created especially for the burial of servicemen and women who died in northern Australia, with remains being brought from other cemeteries and burial grounds from as far away as Mount Isa. The cemetery contains 434 graves, each with its own bronze plaque, in a beautifully landscaped setting.