Thread: Darwin bombing recalled

Darwin bombing recalled - Local News - News - General - The Advertiser

YESTERDAY marked the 67th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin by 188 Japanese aircraft at 9.58am, killing an estimated 900 people.

The attack, the first on Australian soil, came 10 weeks after the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbour.

Australia was totally unprepared even though there was a strong defence force presence in Darwin.

A commemoration service to mark the anniversary was held by the Darwin Defenders 1942 to ‘45 association at the Bendigo and District RSL.

A Darwin Defender, Bill Hosking from Golden Square, told the gathering of his experiences in travelling from his RAAF camp at Werribee to Darwin.

They travelled by train into South Australia until the broad gauge line ran out and then their trucks, ammunition and supplies were transferred to a narrow gauge train for the trip to Alice Springs.

“The train engine was so small that we never got over walking pace all the way,” Mr Hosking said.

He said that at steep inclines, the engine would pull half the wagons up the slope to a siding and then come back for the others.

“This happened three times, so it was pretty slow going.”

When they reached Alice Springs, they travelled in their trucks up a two-wheel track to Darwin in a never-ending battle with the bull dust churned up by the convoy.

They reached camp at Pell Field 20km to the south of Darwin, 10 weeks after leaving Werribee.

Japanese raids never forgotten - Northern Territory News

BOYD Scully never saw a Japanese plane or heard a bomb drop on Darwin.

Mr Scully, now 70, was evacuated from the northern capital before the first bomb fell on February 19, 1942.

He did not return to Darwin until after World War II and the last of 56 Japanese bombing raids on Darwin was consigned to history.

But Boyd Scully will never forget the day his uncle William was killed by the infamous Japanese daisy cutter bomb.

It was April 29, 1943 and 24-year-old private Bill Scully was working with the 29th Australian Employment Company at Shady Glen barracks when the familiar air raid sirens sounded.

42 Japanese fighters and bombers had focused on the RAAF Base and Winnellie and private Scully's workplace was included in their target spread.

The daisy cutter bomb with a stick-like detonator was designed to explode a metre from the ground. In late April, 1943, private William Scully was one of its victims.

His nephew Boyd was at Balaklava in South Australia, as one of hundreds of evacuees from Darwin, when his uncle was killed.

But he will be right next to his uncle today when he joins other family members at the Cenotaph in laying a wreath in memory of that sad day.

The aftermath of the Bombing of Darwin in pictures...
Northern Territory News - Bombing of Darwin