On a warm Thursday morning 79 years ago, on 19 February 1942, two forces of Japanese bombers swept over the Arafura Sea to drop bombs on Darwin…When Australians remember the bombing of Darwin – which they should – as a shocking and potentially portentous event in Australia’s history, they might also consider the sufferings of the people of Timor, and Australia’s part in it.
The attacks left the town, its port and airfield smoking ruins. About 250 people died, the largest single group 88 American sailors aboard the USS Peary, dive-bombed in the harbour. About forty of the dead were Australian civilians, including wharfies, telegraph girls in the bombed Post Office, and Daisy Martin, an Indigenous maid at Government House.
The raid caused consternation as well as destruction. Darwin’s defenders were unprepared. Though army gunners defended the airstrip and American pilots gamely took off to confront much larger Japanese forces, confusion and panic consumed the defenders. While the legendary ‘Darwin panic’ is mostly exaggerated, leaderless servicemen fled into the bush and some looted the still burning town.
Darwin’s bombing created other myths – that news of it was withheld from the rest of Australia; that the death toll reached a thousand (with bodies dumped in the mangroves to feed the crocs to conceal the true cost); that the attacks heralded a planned Japanese invasion.
Dramatic and shocking though it was – Australians read of the bombing the next morning, wondering whether their cities would be next – the bombing of Darwin did not foreshadow a Japanese invasion. Even as the bombs fell Japanese commanders in Tokyo were debating where they should go next, and they decided not to invade Australia: the bombing of Darwin had nothing to do with Japan’s plans for further conquest.
Why did the Japanese bomb Darwin, then? Simply because they had already conquered much of south-east Asia and especially the Netherlands Easy Indies: destroying the nearest major Allied base made sense if they were to hold on to their conquests.
Even so, the first half of 1942 remains the greatest crisis in Australia’s history as a nation. For a time, it seemed that Australia would face invasion, and it certainly endured attacks – another 62 on Darwin, growing lighter until in November 1943 they ended. By then it was clear that Australia was safe and that the Japanese would be defeated. No one knew when or how, or at what cost, but eventual Allied victory was certain.
But Australia was not the only place to fear Japanese attack and invasion in 1942, though many Australians now only think of the Pacific war in terms of the Japanese threat. For many, encouraged by a succession of parochial populist histories, the only battle many Australians recognise is Kokoda; perhaps Singapore – and that they blame on the British.
The bombing of Darwin represented only the furthest reach of Japanese aggression, and with a few hundred dead almost the least costly of the defeats it inflicted in the months of its conquest of south-east Asia. Australians interested in the war’s effects on their neighbours would do well to consider other events in February 1942.
The very next day after the first bombing raids on Darwin, Japanese invasion forces landed in what was then Dutch Timor, and at Dili, in the supposedly neutral Portuguese colony of East Timor. (Why had they breached Portuguese neutrality? Because an Australian force had already entered the neutral colony: Australia brought the war down on its people.)
The Japanese conquest of the island of Timor became a microcosm of Japan’s wartime rule. Timor was necessary to hold as part of the defensive perimeter of Japan’s new empire, and its military rulers treated the Timorese ruthlessly in securing it.
Australian ‘independent companies’ waged a guerilla war against Timor’s Japanese occupiers for a year from February 1942. Numbering no more than a thousand men, they tied down an entire Japanese division until it became clear that they could no longer hold out in Timor’s hills and they were withdrawn. The Timorese who aided them were left behind. About 150 Australians died in Timor. But East Timor’s civilian dead numbered a thousand times the number of Australians killed in Darwin.
Over the next two years, over 40,000 people – all civilians – died in East Timor alone. To put that figure in context, 40,000 Australians died in the entire Second World War, all but a hundred or so of them uniformed personnel – the civilians included the dead of Darwin and merchant sailors torpedoed off Australia’s coast.
When Australians remember the bombing of Darwin – which they should – as a shocking and potentially portentous event in Australia’s history, they might also consider the sufferings of the people of Timor, and Australia’s part in it.
Prof. Peter Stanley is a prize-winning historian. His 40 books include Invading Australia: Japan and the Battle for Australia, 1942.
He spent long years working with the Australian War Memorial as Principal Historian and at the National Museum of Australia as inaugural head of its Research Centre before commencing at UNSW Canberra in 2013 as Research Professor.
Prof. Peter Stanley of UNSW Canberra is one of Australia’s most active military historians and the author of 40 books. His Bad Characters jointly won the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History in 2011.
Comments
13 responses to “Remembering Darwin and …”
” the bombing of Darwin had nothing to do with Japan’s plans for further conquest.”
“destroying the nearest major Allied base made sense if they were to hold on to their conquests.”
Thank you Prof. Peter Stanley for setting the record straight once again.
The Japs wanted Indonesian oil and coal. The myth that the Japanese were on their way to conquer Australia was promoted by white colonialists in SE Asia who needed Australian cannon-fodder to help them recover property lost to Japanese colonialists. American plans for “independence” and demahcracy for The Philippines were plans for a puppet government elected by the Philippine population.
Demahcracy, modern American colonialism, has been much more successful in the world than the point-of-a gun slavery that characterised Japanese colonialism in China and Korea and would have been extended to SE Asia.
I agree with the first paragraph, but it was due a large part to the US’s relationship from the early 1850s onwards with Japan, one that went sour in the end, that brought on WWII in the Pacific.
As far back as Theodore Roosevelt, they also gave the green light to Japan to become the dominant imperialist country in the region, the Japanese copying Western versions of the same. This is after the Japanese navy had destroyed the Russian fleet in the Battle of Tsushima.
The British and their old allies the Hapsburgs were pretty keen on containing, or better still pushing back Russia, which had been waiting to gobble up Ottoman provinces, pushing its interests in the Balkans, and expanding south towards India. The Vatican was anxious, as always, for more religious money to come west than go east. They were all pleased with Tsushima. They hoped for an eastern front to occupy the Russians, and help them push Russia north-east. The Americans and the French were less keen on pumping up Japanese militarism because of their property interests in The Philippines and Indo-China respectively.
The white powers fought against the Chinese government because it stood between them and the markets they wanted to open up in China. The Japanese militarists wanted to enslave the Chinese people. I would agree though, that promoting opium addiction is comparable with working slaves to death. On the other hand, the Chinese did quite well out of English tea-drinking, which was also a less harmful way of quenching one’s thirst than brewing beer, in an age of unsafe water.
1.
I agree with what you say, and thank you for your comment which adds more to the picture concerning contentions between Russia and Europe and the dividing line between Russia across central Asia that remains even today. But I would still claim that Theodore Roosevelt was very much behind Japan with supporting their imperialist potential.
Without referencing books and pages in T.R’s diaries, the point I make is covered in this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06bradley.html
The US were somewhat enamoured by Japan for many years, it was an example of how those from the Far East could be turned into ‘civilised’ people like Westerners. That was accompanied by stories sent back home that the Japanese could be Christianized and even learn to wear Western clothing, which thrilled Americans at the time. They were becoming like us!
2.
On another point. The Chinese sold tea to the British but in today’s terms it was an act of property rights theft against China on the part of the British. They stole Chinese knowledge and adapted it to the British-Indian tea industry using Chinese plants.
It is certain that the variety of tea growing in India that the British and Indians cultivate is imported originally from China.
Sir, I felt concerned about Australia’s relationship with Japan when our Prime Minister Scott Morrison praised Shinto Abe’ analysis of China; Japan’s bid to build our submarine; and yesterday’s article by John Menadue, “What is the Japanese Embassy in Canberra up to?”. Like most other countries eg. the US and UK in their dealings with Australia, Japan’s self-interest is above all assertions of friendship and alliance.
Thinking about it, I found a similarity between the actions of the Japanese and the Australian governments’ military undertakings at odds with the desires or “mandate” of their people. For example, John Hoard took us to war in Iraq without proper consultation with the Australian people. The Japanese people are still largely pacifists, but the right wing government of Japan under Shinto Abe and now Yoshihide Suga has taken the Japanese military and policy in a direction not quite in accord with the wishes of its still large community of pacifists. There is an ambivalence that is reflected in an article written by Alex Ward titled “The Rise of Japanese Militarism”. It is perhaps the most concise and penetrating analysis of this ambivalence that I have ever read in an article of that length. I would urge everyone who is interested in Australia’s welfare to read this:
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/30/18100066/japan-shinzo-abe-sdf-emperor-china
The change of attitude of the Japanese government from one that is wholly pacifist in nature to a more militant one is reflected in this statement extracted from the article:
“But times have changed. Helped by an aggressive China, a growing North Korean nuclear threat, and his firm control over the government, Abe has found ways to bolster his nation’s forces with minimal domestic blowback. His administration passed a law allowing Japan to defend allies, approved a new muscular defense plan, and could soon amend its war-renouncing constitution to formalize the nation’s armed forces’ existence. ”
Goading Australia to further confront China would bring the US into the fray and thus provide Japan with the excuse of going to war to defend their allies. What worries me is that a hot conflict with China would also give the Japanese government the excuse to “nuclearise” its military. They will have to hope for a limited war because an all out one will have no winners. Even on a limited one, the region will suffer the paradox of keeping the peace by going to war – another Middle East mess.
In essence, it is not about Japan’s fear of China’s territorial ambitions than its influence on the region.
“Abe administration officials I spoke with say the current worry isn’t that a Chinese attack on Japan is imminent. Rather, the concern is that Beijing’s growing economic and military prowess could allow it to reshape the world in its image. Abe, however, likes the current system and argues the only way to preserve it is to push back when required.”
The last direct quote below tells the reader what Japan’s real reason and intent are for wanting to confront China, not on its own, but by using other proxies, Australia being one of them:
“In effect, the current China-Japan fight is really about competing visions of the future — and Japan is struggling to win. That’s in part because “no one expected” China to have the military might it has today, according to one top Japanese defense official I spoke with. What’s more, few expected Japan’s neighbor to so brazenly challenge Japan’s sovereignty in regional waters.”
Well said Teow loon Ti.
It is interesting to note that Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party has only been out of office for a tally of four years since it first gained office in 1955. It is virtually a single party state. So much for democracy and the overwhelming population of pacifists that obviously don’t get a look in, no better exemplified than in Okinawa where US military air and naval bases completely dominate the island. Clearly it is also the puppet of the US (like Australia), yet retains some elements of pre-WWII belligerence to keep the war flames burning. If Shinzo Abe is any example, the party seems often linked to alleged corruption, which also may explain why it is almost permanently in office.
Thanks George.
George, The story is not complete without mentioning the complete white-anting of the Japanese political situation by our usual suspect, the CIA. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html
This is what was published by the NY Times. We can bet that what actually happened was a lot worse than just bribing by the tens of millions, using the Yakuza, infiltration of the Socialist Party – including probably knocking off some of their leaders. The CIA job in Japan sounds like a “Crimes Are Us” gig, and it went on for a long time.
The seminal Plaza Accord of 1985 agreed to by the Japanese was confirmation that Japan is no sovereign country. No country would be so stupid as to cause such economic havoc to itself, and Japan has still not fully recovered from it until today.
Japan’s very corrupt LDP today is nothing more than a dog accepting just about any instruction from the US. It’s not only Okinawan folks that have been conned; the entire country is literally still under occupation. And that is how the USA likes it. And there is zero prospect of the Japanese regaining a semblance of independence. Sadly, I don’t think, in general, Japanese people are aware of their complete national impotence.
Strategically, the world should not worry about what the Japanese leadership does or is planning to do. It’s got no say in its own strategic moves anyway. Interestingly it is currently fixated about joining the exclusive 5-Eyes Club of Anglo nations. They have forgotten their own history- at the Treaty of Versailles, the European powers rudely turned down Japan’s request for a racial equality clause inserted. Can you imagine our exclusive special White Club of the 5-Eyes welcoming a non-English speaking vassal state Asian leader into the inner sanctum where decisions are being made on issues of planetary consequence?! The Japanese still doesn’t get it, after more than a hundred years!!
As for Shinto Abe, he always appeared to behave like a dog when he was with Trump, even when Trump appeared abrupt and rude. In that he symbolises the Japan of today; the country is nothing more than an occupied vassal state.
A remarkable link from the US telling us what it does. In this case you couldn’t get a better source. ‘From the horse’s mouth’ as we say. Despite the NY Times being mainstream it still does some good investigative work on occasion.
Thanks Man Lee as usual, and feel free to inform me when you want to add anything from your point of view and depth of knowledge. These are very important parts of the jigsaw I’m putting together in my mind, but there is still a lot for me to learn.
I knew the CIA hatchet on Japan, but I was surprised myself to find the NY Times story. I think over at least the last few years, links to incriminating evidence of the wrong-doings of the political and military Masters of the Universe are being killed by Google. So what I do is that I also use DuckDuckGo to try to see the stuff you can’t see in Google.
Conversely, links to the great wonderful stories of ‘freedom’, ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’ were and are richly provided to the people of Eastern Europe, the ‘Arab Spring’ countries, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, and of course more topically, the people of Myanmar. (They, of course, have no intention to do the same with helping the severely repressed people of their client state, Saudi Arabia…).
Now Eastern Europe has been captured, the Mid-East has been satisfactorily smashed -what Pepe Escobar referred to as the “Empire of Chaos”. Taiwan is still in the bag, but Hong Kong got away! Myanmar is a hard one to crack, but the strategists are still hoping for enough bloodshed to shift the balance against the generals. Navalny got sent back to try his luck… the Masters of the Universe are still hoping for regime change in Russia!
Unfortunately, I don’t think I am imagining things! Remember the still very much alive concept of ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’? It’s crazy, but this is what they want! America has already done enough evil in this world.
Passionately true. Pepe is amazing, he’s all eyes and ears and fully updated.
On Okinawa – I cited it because I know there is a permanent demonstration going on there from the local people, due to the air base in particular, an air crash into a school, and some ugly behaviour of members of US military with local girls. Something that the same LDP government would not get away with on the main Japanese islands in the same way.
Okinawa as a US base goes all the way back to Commodore Perry, and even at that time he was met with hostility of the people on the island. So much for US gunship diplomacy.