Defence Community Book Club discussion

This thread is for the discussion of An Awkward Truth: The Bombing of Darwin, February 1942 by Peter Grose.



Book Synopsis:
Darwin was a battle Australia would rather forget. Yet the Japanese attack on 19 February 1942 was the first wartime assault on Australian soil. The Japanese struck with the same carrier-borne force that devastated Pearl Harbor only ten weeks earlier. There was a difference. More bombs fell on Darwin, more civilians were killed, and more ships were sunk.

The raid led to the worst death toll from any event in Australia. The attackers bombed and strafed three hospitals, flattened shops, offices and the police barracks, shattered the Post Office and communications centre, wrecked Government House, and left the harbour and airfields burning and ruined.

The people of Darwin abandoned their town, leaving it to looters, a few anti-aircraft batteries and a handful of dogged defenders with single-shot .303 rifles. Yet the story has remained in the shadows.

Drawing on long-hidden documents and first-person accounts, Peter Grose tells what really happened and takes us into the lives of the people who were there. There was much to be proud of in Darwin that day: courage, mateship, determination and improvisation. But the dark side of the story involves looting, desertion and a calamitous failure of leadership. Australians ran away because they did not know what else to do.

Absorbing, spirited and fast-paced, An Awkward Truth is a compelling and revealing story of the day war really came to Australia, and the motley bunch of soldiers and civilians who were left to defend the nation.

This book is also the book of the month for the Billeroy Book Club in Darwin. The Billeroy Book Club is due to meet on the 16th of February, 2015.

This book was chosen for February as the Bombing of Darwin took place in February of 1942.

There is no set schedule, so feel free to read at your own pace and drop in for a chat.

Please clearly mark **SPOILER** or (view spoiler)[ hide under a spoiler (hide spoiler)] anything that may give away the story.

I didn't know anything about the bombing of Darwin before our family was posted to Darwin. This is our first posting, so I didn't know much about Australian military history in general. It was something that wasn't taught in schools when I was young. In a discussion with a teacher today, I found out it is something that still isn't part of the Australian curriculum.

When did you find out about the bombing of Darwin?

Chapter 1 - 3
This section gave me a better understanding of the political climate before the bombing of Darwin.

In a nutshell - (view spoiler)[
Chapter 3

"The Japanese fought on the allied side in the First World War but felt cheated of a proper reward for their part in the victory over Germany."

" For good measure Roosevelt closed the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping. A week later he specifically banned all supply of oil to Japan.The British government and the Dutch government in exile followed suit. Japan was now between a rock and a hard place. Eighty per cent of Japan’s oil came from the United States. It needed an alternative source, and fast.The most promising target looked like the Dutch East Indies, particularly Java, where oil flowed in abundance."

"Yamamoto proposed a bolder and more radical strategy. Use aircraft to knock out the US Pacific Fleet on the first day of the war, he argued. Then, at leisure, grab the southern oilfields and anything else Japan wanted, with no risk of interference from the Americans. This would involve an attack on Pearl Harbor itself, right in the enemy’s heartland and thousands of kilometres from the Japanese homeland." (hide spoiler)]

Chapter 4 - 7
More info about what Japan was doing in the lead up to the bombing of Darwin.

I don't read much non fiction. I'm finding this interesting because it has lots of little anecdotes.

Chapter 8 - 9
The first attack on Darwin.

Chapter 10 - 16
Lots of confusion.

Epilogue
I liked this bit. It had a real "where are they now" feel to it.

I read Appendix 1 but not Appendix 2. I found 1 quite interesting - the letter sent out with instructions of what was to happen if there was an evacuation. All these little details made it seem so real - instructions to destroy any pets before you went as you weren't allowed to take them with you and nobody could look after them after you were gone.

Today is the 73rd anniversary of the Bombing of Darwin.