BOMBING OF DARWIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24855, 3 March 1942, Page 4

BOMBING OF DARWIN

AFTERMATH OF RAID FULL INQUIRY ORDERED PERTINENT QUESTIONS ASKED (Air Mail) SYDNEY, Feb. 25, Darwin was being bombed last Thursday; while Sydney was having its first daylight raid test. As the people ran from the streets and huddled in the shelters, they did not know that physical war had come to Australia. They heard the news an hour later, and Darwin, 1700 miles away by air, suddenly became near and vital. “ Face it,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Curtin, but the words seemed superfluous. After, the first shock, Australians were angry and serious. They awaited more news, and, true to his promise to conceal nothing from the public, Mr Curtin released each bulletin as it arrived, terse and disjointed. through the broken lines of telegraphic communication, from: the service officers in the north. It was wrongly announced officially that Darwin was being raided again on Friday, but the statement was later corrected. The mistake was due to the mutilation of a coded message which omitted the word “ alert.” Straight for Objectives

Stories of the raid were told by civilians as evacuation trains carried them south from the danger area. All agreed that the attack was a surprise. Bombs from the planes, sweeping in unexpectedly from the southeast, burst simultaneously with the scream of sirens.- The planes darted straight at their objectives, suspiciously so. The post office was the first to go, then the civil hospital was shaken by a stick of bombs. The waterfront was heavily plastered. There was not an evacuee of the hundreds who travelled south in blistering sun, on iron rations, and in wretched discomfort, who did not have a story to unfold of narrow escape, and of individual heroism, but there was no complete picture of the damage caused.

Mr Curtin was prepared to be frank with the public, so long as the 1 news released could be of no assistance to the enemy. “Having regard to the certainty that the enemy had prior knowledge of the general position at Darwin, I do not propose inform him of the degree of success or failure which marked the attack,” he said. Only the secret meeting of Parliament at the week-end was given details. Was Darwin Caught Unawares?

At the back of the public mind was the question; “ Could our capital cities and industrial towns of the east and west coast be taken unawares? ” The Sydney Sun asked other pertinent questions. “Why should Darwin have been caught flat-footed? ” “ How could an aircraft carrier have got within fighter range without being detected by reconnaissance planes? ” Was there no radio detector? ” “Have we hot learned the lesson of Pearl Harbour? ” “Have we a proper system of shore patrols and searching air reconnaissance? ”

No doubt these questions will be sifted by senior army and air force officers despatched to Darwin from headquarters immediately after the raid. The Government ordered a full inquiry into all aspects of the attack, including any suspicion that the; Japanese may have been aided by Fifth Column activities. Now a "Ghost Town”

Darwin to-day is a “ghost town.” All civilians not engaged in essential work have been evacuated. Houses and shops are empty. The town is under military; control. Darwin residents who had no opportunity to ensure property under the War Damage Insurance scheme, not yet in operation, have been advised to file claims, which the commission will honour after the war. ■