Bombing of Darwin 1942
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 19 February 1942 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1942 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Location | Australia | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Oceania | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Air raids on Australia, 1942–43 | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | -12.4750, 130.8500 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
On 19 February 1942, 188 Japanese aircraft, in two separate raids, bombed the Australian town of Darwin, ships in Darwin Harbour and the town's two airfields in an attempt to prevent the Allies from using them as bases to contest the invasion of Timor and Java during World War II. This was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia.
Darwin was very lightly defended relative to the size of this attack, and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses upon Allied forces at little cost to themselves. The urban areas of Darwin also suffered some damage from the raids and there were a number of civilian casualties. More than half of Darwin's civilian population left the area permanently, before or immediately after the attack.
The two Japanese air raids were the first, and largest, of more than 100 air raids against Australia during 1942–1943. The event happened just four days after the Fall of Singapore, when a combined Commonwealth force surrendered to the Japanese, the largest surrender in British history.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Bombing of Darwin (revision 1380535472), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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