This week in the War, 16–22 February 1942: The bombing of Darwin

This week in the war, on 19 February 1942, fighters and bombers from the carrier force of Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo—who in November had launched his planes against Pearl Harbour—attacked Darwin, the largest city of northern Australia.

The bombing of Darwin was the first attack on mainland Australia and is described in Fact sheet 195 of the National Archives of Australia. Nagumo launched two raids that day, sinking eight ships in the harbour and killing over two hundred people. About half of Darwin’s population headed south, thinking that the Japanese were about to land.

The attack has been dramatized in the 2008 movie Australia, which starred Australian actress Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley, a radio operator in Darwin at the time of the raids.

HMAS Deloraine, the corvette/minesweeper shown in the picture above, survived the attack on Darwin harbour and went on to survive the war. She participated in numerous actions, including the sinking of an enemy submarine in the January before the attack on Darwin.