Kookaburra2011
ONE MORNING OF THE WAR: Darwin, Feb. 19, 1942. HMAS DELORAINE and HMAS WATO. Photo Darwin Military Museum, courtesy the curator, Dr Tom Lewis OAM.
3783. Darwin-based journalist Douglas Lockwood called it 'Australia's Pearl Harbour' as the title of his 1967 book on the great Japanese raid on Darwin, which started just before 10. am on morning of Feb. 19, 1942.
The attack by 242 aircraft was carried out by four aircraft carriers in the Timor Sea, and land-based bombers from Timor itself. Essentially Admiral Nagumo's fleet was the same as that which had attacked Pearl Harbour some 10 weeks earlier, and the comparison of the two raids is only exaggerated in the sense that Darwin, a northern frontier town, was not the base for a great battle fleet, with battleships being sunk and damaged. There was, nonetheless, a collection of 55 ships in Darwin Harbour, and both spectacular and tragic events were to occur there.
We begin here a short series of images ONE MORNING OF THE WAR, Darwin Feb. 19, 1942 which will have several contributors, but is built around photographs from the album of the late Petty Officer Hector 'Nobby' Clark,' RAN 1919-1927, RANR 1930, and RAN 1940-46. Mr Clark, originally from Sorrento, Victoria, was on the boom defence vessel HMAS KANGAROO, which was damaged and suffered one fatality [Norman R. Moore, S3584, a cook] during the raid. Mr Clark later served on the figate HMAS HAWKESBURY, and became a postmaster at Creswell, NSW, after the war. He crossed the bar some years ago, and the photos from his album here appear courtesy of his daughter, Miss Faye Clark, a commissioned officer in the ADF, of Molong NSW.
We begin, however, with a one-off special photo, which we think has never been seen publicly before. We were in the midst of preparing this Darwin series when the photograph above appeared in our mail box, via Fairmiles modeller Roger Pearson, from the curator of the Darwin Military Museum at East Head, Dr Tom Lewis, OAM, and seeking identification of the unknown tugboat.
It's a terrific image, and a terrific story, and when we sent Dr Lewis a message that said, TOM! BY ALL POSSIBLE HUMAN MEASURES - WE MUST HAVE THIS! Tom kindly and immediately consented to have the photo appear here. The tug boat steaming past the moored Bathurst Class corvette HMAS DELORAINE [which will help sink a Japanese submarine several days later] is the 1904-built HMAS WATO, the oldest ship in the RAN during WWII, and one of the outstanding hero ships of the raid on Darwin.
We have never understood why her CO, Warrant Officer Andrew Gibson, was not [as far as we know] given one of the highest gallantry awards.
When the bombs first burst all around Darwin's Stokes Hill Wharf just before 10 a.m., killing 20 wharf laborers on the dock and setting ablaze burst oil lines and the ammunition-laden M.V. NEPTUNA, WO Gibson has steamed his little tug through a film of blazing oil to pull an oil lighter tied up beside a freighter S.S. BAROSSA away from the flames. Along the dock, the Navy special ops lugger HMAS MALVIA was sinking outboard of the old depot ship HMAS PLATYPUS, the sloop HMAS SWAN [II] was pulling out with three dead and 19 wounded from shrapnel and strafing, and the NEPTUNA, laden with mines or depth charges [sources vary] was about to explode.
Nonetheless, Gibson took his little tug back into the flames and was towing S.S. BAROSSA clear when the NEPTUNA in fact exploded, sending a massive fireball and atomic-like mushroom plume of smoke 4000ft into the air over the Harbour.
What we see above, at 10.46 a,m., is HMAS WATO, dashing back towards the smoke and flames while HMAS DELORAINE remains tied to her mooring. HMAS WATO was to perform further gallant feats during the New Guinea campaign. Her story is succinctly told on the RAN Seapower Centre's history homepage for the ship, here:
POSTSCRIPT: We now believe this photo shows the tugboat approaching the 5, 436 ton U.S. Matson Navigation Company ship MAUNA LOA, on fire and sinking after receiving two bombs down a hatch. See a small-sized Wikipedia/AWM image here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SS_Mauna_Loa_on_fire_before_si...
Further, here is an extract from the National Archives of Australia. Fact Sheet 195, which gives the essential details of the bombing of Darwin, and its aftermath.
Fact sheet 195 – The bombing of Darwin
Japanese air raids on Darwin and northern Australia, 1942–43
On 19 February 1942 mainland Australia came under attack for the first time when Japanese forces mounted two air raids on Darwin. The two attacks, which were planned and led by the commander responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbour ten weeks earlier, involved 54 land-based bombers and approximately 188 attack aircraft which were launched from four Japanese aircraft-carriers in the Timor Sea. In the first attack, which began just before 10.00 am, heavy bombers pattern-bombed the harbour and town; dive bombers escorted by Zero fighters then attacked shipping in the harbour, the military and civil aerodromes, and the hospital at Berrimah. The attack ceased after about 40 minutes. The second attack, which began an hour later, involved high altitude bombing of the Royal Australian Air Force base at Parap which lasted for 20–25 minutes. The two raids killed at least 243 people and between 300 and 400 were wounded. Twenty military aircraft were destroyed, eight ships at anchor in the harbour were sunk, and most civil and military facilities in Darwin were destroyed.
Contrary to widespread belief at the time, the attacks were not a precursor to an invasion. The Japanese were preparing to invade Timor, and anticipated that a disruptive air attack would hinder Darwin's potential as a base from which the Allies could launch a counter-offensive, and at the same time would damage Australian morale. With Singapore having fallen to the Japanese only days earlier, and concerned at the effect of the bombing on national morale, the government announced that only 17 people had been killed.
The air attacks on Darwin continued until November 1943, by which time the Japanese had bombed Darwin 64 times. During the war other towns in northern Australia were also the target of Japanese air attack, with bombs being dropped on Townsville, Katherine, Wyndham, Derby, Broome and Port Hedland.
Photo: Darwin Military Museum, East Head, Darwin, courtesy of the curator, Dr Tom Lewis, OAM, who has specifically made it available for the Unofficial RAN Centenary, 1911-2011 Photostream.
ONE MORNING OF THE WAR: Darwin, Feb. 19, 1942. HMAS DELORAINE and HMAS WATO. Photo Darwin Military Museum, courtesy the curator, Dr Tom Lewis OAM.
3783. Darwin-based journalist Douglas Lockwood called it 'Australia's Pearl Harbour' as the title of his 1967 book on the great Japanese raid on Darwin, which started just before 10. am on morning of Feb. 19, 1942.
The attack by 242 aircraft was carried out by four aircraft carriers in the Timor Sea, and land-based bombers from Timor itself. Essentially Admiral Nagumo's fleet was the same as that which had attacked Pearl Harbour some 10 weeks earlier, and the comparison of the two raids is only exaggerated in the sense that Darwin, a northern frontier town, was not the base for a great battle fleet, with battleships being sunk and damaged. There was, nonetheless, a collection of 55 ships in Darwin Harbour, and both spectacular and tragic events were to occur there.
We begin here a short series of images ONE MORNING OF THE WAR, Darwin Feb. 19, 1942 which will have several contributors, but is built around photographs from the album of the late Petty Officer Hector 'Nobby' Clark,' RAN 1919-1927, RANR 1930, and RAN 1940-46. Mr Clark, originally from Sorrento, Victoria, was on the boom defence vessel HMAS KANGAROO, which was damaged and suffered one fatality [Norman R. Moore, S3584, a cook] during the raid. Mr Clark later served on the figate HMAS HAWKESBURY, and became a postmaster at Creswell, NSW, after the war. He crossed the bar some years ago, and the photos from his album here appear courtesy of his daughter, Miss Faye Clark, a commissioned officer in the ADF, of Molong NSW.
We begin, however, with a one-off special photo, which we think has never been seen publicly before. We were in the midst of preparing this Darwin series when the photograph above appeared in our mail box, via Fairmiles modeller Roger Pearson, from the curator of the Darwin Military Museum at East Head, Dr Tom Lewis, OAM, and seeking identification of the unknown tugboat.
It's a terrific image, and a terrific story, and when we sent Dr Lewis a message that said, TOM! BY ALL POSSIBLE HUMAN MEASURES - WE MUST HAVE THIS! Tom kindly and immediately consented to have the photo appear here. The tug boat steaming past the moored Bathurst Class corvette HMAS DELORAINE [which will help sink a Japanese submarine several days later] is the 1904-built HMAS WATO, the oldest ship in the RAN during WWII, and one of the outstanding hero ships of the raid on Darwin.
We have never understood why her CO, Warrant Officer Andrew Gibson, was not [as far as we know] given one of the highest gallantry awards.
When the bombs first burst all around Darwin's Stokes Hill Wharf just before 10 a.m., killing 20 wharf laborers on the dock and setting ablaze burst oil lines and the ammunition-laden M.V. NEPTUNA, WO Gibson has steamed his little tug through a film of blazing oil to pull an oil lighter tied up beside a freighter S.S. BAROSSA away from the flames. Along the dock, the Navy special ops lugger HMAS MALVIA was sinking outboard of the old depot ship HMAS PLATYPUS, the sloop HMAS SWAN [II] was pulling out with three dead and 19 wounded from shrapnel and strafing, and the NEPTUNA, laden with mines or depth charges [sources vary] was about to explode.
Nonetheless, Gibson took his little tug back into the flames and was towing S.S. BAROSSA clear when the NEPTUNA in fact exploded, sending a massive fireball and atomic-like mushroom plume of smoke 4000ft into the air over the Harbour.
What we see above, at 10.46 a,m., is HMAS WATO, dashing back towards the smoke and flames while HMAS DELORAINE remains tied to her mooring. HMAS WATO was to perform further gallant feats during the New Guinea campaign. Her story is succinctly told on the RAN Seapower Centre's history homepage for the ship, here:
POSTSCRIPT: We now believe this photo shows the tugboat approaching the 5, 436 ton U.S. Matson Navigation Company ship MAUNA LOA, on fire and sinking after receiving two bombs down a hatch. See a small-sized Wikipedia/AWM image here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SS_Mauna_Loa_on_fire_before_si...
Further, here is an extract from the National Archives of Australia. Fact Sheet 195, which gives the essential details of the bombing of Darwin, and its aftermath.
Fact sheet 195 – The bombing of Darwin
Japanese air raids on Darwin and northern Australia, 1942–43
On 19 February 1942 mainland Australia came under attack for the first time when Japanese forces mounted two air raids on Darwin. The two attacks, which were planned and led by the commander responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbour ten weeks earlier, involved 54 land-based bombers and approximately 188 attack aircraft which were launched from four Japanese aircraft-carriers in the Timor Sea. In the first attack, which began just before 10.00 am, heavy bombers pattern-bombed the harbour and town; dive bombers escorted by Zero fighters then attacked shipping in the harbour, the military and civil aerodromes, and the hospital at Berrimah. The attack ceased after about 40 minutes. The second attack, which began an hour later, involved high altitude bombing of the Royal Australian Air Force base at Parap which lasted for 20–25 minutes. The two raids killed at least 243 people and between 300 and 400 were wounded. Twenty military aircraft were destroyed, eight ships at anchor in the harbour were sunk, and most civil and military facilities in Darwin were destroyed.
Contrary to widespread belief at the time, the attacks were not a precursor to an invasion. The Japanese were preparing to invade Timor, and anticipated that a disruptive air attack would hinder Darwin's potential as a base from which the Allies could launch a counter-offensive, and at the same time would damage Australian morale. With Singapore having fallen to the Japanese only days earlier, and concerned at the effect of the bombing on national morale, the government announced that only 17 people had been killed.
The air attacks on Darwin continued until November 1943, by which time the Japanese had bombed Darwin 64 times. During the war other towns in northern Australia were also the target of Japanese air attack, with bombs being dropped on Townsville, Katherine, Wyndham, Derby, Broome and Port Hedland.
Photo: Darwin Military Museum, East Head, Darwin, courtesy of the curator, Dr Tom Lewis, OAM, who has specifically made it available for the Unofficial RAN Centenary, 1911-2011 Photostream.