| Darwin commemorates WWII bombing This is a little old how ever it has some figures on the Darwin casualties. Darwin commemorates WWII bombing
Posted Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:00am AEDT
Updated Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:43am AEDT
Hundreds of people are expected to gather at the Darwin Cenotaph this morning to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin.
From February 19, 1942 to November 1943 the sound of air-raid sirens regularly echoed around the city of Darwin.
Sixty-five years on a large crowd is expected to attend a ceremony at the Darwin Cenotaph to mark the occasion Japanese forces attacked. It was also the first time Australia had been attacked on home soil by an enemy. Bombs fell from the Darwin skies for about 40 minutes and a second attack was launched half an hour later. In total 243 people were killed during the raids. Experts estimate about 400 others were injured.
A siren will be sounded at two minutes to 10:00am ACST at the Cenotaph - the exact time the first bomb struck.
The curator of the Australian War Memorial Chris Goddard says for the survivors the constant sound of air raids can still be heard.
"They lived on adrenaline and wits and in a lot of cases they still do. It's going to be a very emotional day," he said.
__________________ Spidge,
------------------------------------------------------- My Avatar is the memorial to the 22 Commonwealth Coastwatchers at the Temakin Cemetery on Betio (Tarawa Atoll) who were beheaded by the Japanese on 15th October 1942. http://www.dva.gov.au/media/publicat...mem_beito.html
"You were given the choice between war and dishonor.
You chose dishonor and you will have war."
(Winston Churchill made this prophetic pronouncement in a House of Commons speech in 1938, just after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich agreement with Hitler. Chamberlain returned from Germany with the signed agreement in hand, proclaiming that "peace in our time" had been achieved. Churchill attacked Chamberlain's "politics of appeasement" in this and many other speeches.) What did the Australians do in ww2 and other conflicts? Check out this site: http://www.diggerhistory.info/00-pag...ster-index.htm |