It was a number of causes leading up to it that made the bombing of Darwin the largest single attack to ever happen on Australian soil. It was also because of the comparison to the other attacks throughout Australia by the Japanese during the same year. There were over one hundred raids in 1942 and 1943 including one on Sydney Harbour, that the Japanese didn’t affect as drastically. However, when the Japanese bombed Darwin, there was a great deal of impact on aspects other than infrastructure. Australia was also challenged economically, politically and socially.
The bombing of Darwin was the largest attack on Australian soil in history and there were a number of causes leading up to it. To be able to invade Timor and Java, Japan decided it would be best to take out Darwin as that city was most likely to become allies with them if Japan were to invade. Japan succeeded in this when they bombed Darwin on February 19, 1942. They attacked with two air raids in the same day with 242 Japanese aircraft, using 188 aircraft in the first raid. Japan destroyed 20 of Australia’s military aircraft and eight ships as well as most of the military and civil infrastructure being blown up. Due to a major loss to most of the cargo shipping available, support for Java and Timor was gone. Severe damage was also caused to electricity and water with some services being destroyed. Other than infrastructure, about 250 lives were lost and 300 to 400 military personnel and civilians were injured and more than half of Darwin’s population left permanently.
Because of what Japan had done to prevent Australia from potentially assisting and helping Java and Timor so that they could successfully invade, they caused such devastation, using 242 aircraft in the same day, to demolish military and civil infrastructure and harm to almost 400 people. Ultimately, Japan created the largest attack on Australian soil in history.
The bombing of Darwin wasn’t the only attack on Australia. During 1942 and 1943, there were over one hundred raids, including an attack on Sydney Harbour. These attacks continued until November 1943 on 97 different occasions. One of the major attacks was one on June 16, 1942 when the Japanese set light to oil fuel tanks which were located all around the harbour on Stokes Hill Wharf, imposing destruction to banks and stores. A few weeks earlier, in the early morning of June 1, 1942, Sydney Harbour was attacked directly from three Japanese midget submarines. Two of them were destroyed however the third was still able to fire its torpedo, missing the USS Chicago but hitting and sinking the HMAS Kuttabul along with 19 Australians and 2 members of the Royal Navy who were sleeping on board. Other than submarines, air raids were also used and were a lot more common with 64 raids on Darwin, 9 on Horn Island, 4 on Broome and 3 each on Exmouth Gulf and Townsville.
Even though these attacks, both air and submarine, would have been very hard to deal with and recover from for Australian communities everywhere, none compared to the damage brought upon Australia as the Bombing of Darwin on the 19th of February 1942.
Not only did the attacks on Darwin have an impact on infrastructure, they also challenged Australian society and politics. First of all, the bombing of Darwin caused really deep reflection by the nation on Australia’s defence and security requirements. Australian Army Headquarters had sent multiple orders to the 43rd Battalion base in Darwin, ''in preparation for the anticipated landing by Japanese forces'' of enemy aircraft on the ''North East Coast of Australia''. Despite these warnings, the defence and security services in Darwin, weren’t able to stop the fight against Japan. Furthermore, when Australia needed help to protect its assets, only Canberra could be relied upon to do this. The bombing of Darwin was also the result of constant worry that was brought into the community and loved ones who were affected. This chaos and fear spread across the city was a result of thoughts on the possibility of future attacks. Hard to control looting from deserted houses occurred due to an inevitable immense influx of refugees. From a local census, it was discovered that 1,066 women and 969 children left Darwin after the bombing and even after the war, most never returned. These experiences were described as “harrowing for the evacuated families”.
The fact that the Bombing of Darwin challenged Australia in all aspects including, economically, socially and politically as well as physically, it makes the Bombing of Darwin the largest attack to ever happen on Australia soil.
It is safe to say that the bombing of Darwin caused a lot of trauma and suffering for Australia and that no other attacks on the country since February 19, 1942 come close to the disastrous effects than what came with that event. Out of the 97 separate raids, even the attack on Sydney Harbour that killed 21 people was far less compared to approximately 400 deaths and injuries. Other than a new awareness that the safety of every citizen and element of infrastructure needed to be taken much more seriously, the Bombing of Darwin found Australia barely recovering from economic, social and political ways of history’s largest single attack to ever happen on Australia.