USS Peary down by the stern on right (Lewis Collection)
The Territory Remembers
The American Alliance – founded in blood and sacrifice in Darwin
By Dr Tom Lewis
An important event that shaped the Australia of today
occurred when Americans and Australians fought
together against the first air raid on this nation on 19
February 1942. From that day onwards, Australia has
depended on the Alliance began informally in that combat
action.
Why were United States forces in Darwin? Following the
attack of Pearl Harbour just over two months previously
in December 1941, American forces in the Pacific, like
those of other Allied countries, had been under attack from
the Japanese Army and Navy. The Allies had been going
steadily backwards, pressed hard by an under-estimated
enemy that had done very well due to its aggression,
high morale, modern equipment and capable strategy
and tactics. Japan took the British fortress of Singapore,
smashed the American presence in the Philippines, and
kicked out the Dutch from their colonial towns scattered
through South-east Asia.
Any attempt at holding back the Japanese advance was
strictly a holding action by the Allies who, grimly in the face
of defeat, had brought forward ships, soldiers and aircraft,
only to find them outflanked, routed and decimated with
considerable loss of life. Now the Japanese were investing
what is now Indonesia; looking to turn left and take New
Guinea, and cut Australia off for easy pickings later. To do
that they had to stop the USA from coming to use the
Great South Land, as one American general later put it, as a
giant aircraft carrier which didn’t go anywhere.
www.territoryremembers.nt.gov.au
Darwin could be a thorn in the side of this invading beast
as it moved inexorably south and east. Equipped with
runways, a deep-water port and infrastructure such as
oil tanks, the northern capital was too good a base to
be ignored. To negate its operations, the Japanese first
tried with submarines in January 19142 to mine Darwin’s
approaches and shut it down. The operation was a disaster:
one of the giant 80-man vessels was sunk in a short fight
outside the harbour, where it remains today.1
So the Imperial High Command summoned the same
aircraft carriers which had assaulted Pearl Harbour and
early one Thursday morning they turned into the wind and
began launching their air armada. It flew south, and crossed
the coast to the east of Darwin, circling to attack from the
south and therefore achieve surprise. High-level bombers
began raining death and destruction; the dive bombers
swooped down to attack the 56 ships in the harbour, and
the Zero fighters circled to guard their partners. Just before
10am Darwin was under attack.
The United States Army Air Force (USAAF) flew the only
defending aircraft in the first air raid: ten P-40 Kittyhawk
fighters against the 188 incoming attackers of the
Japanese Navy. Four pilots from the Kittyhawks of the
American 49th Pursuit Group were killed in action. Five
of these USAAF aircraft were airborne and five were on
the ground refueling when the enemy arrived. Those on
the airstrip valiantly tried to take off to little avail. Those
pilots who survived either parachuted out of their aircraft
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or survived the crash of their machine, with one escaping
the onslaught to land later. The fighter pilots had joined
with 16 anti-aircraft gun sites and the guns of the ships in
harbour to bring down four of the enemy aircraft.
One US Navy member who was crewing a US Catalina
flying boat died after the aircraft was shot down off
Bathurst Island by Zeros of the incoming force before it
reached Darwin. Piloted by Lieutenant Thomas Moorer,
the Catalina crash-landed and the majority of the crew
survived. Moorer went on to become an Admiral of his
Navy. He was a lucky and skillful naval officer.
In the harbour and outside it, US vessels joined those of
Australia’s in action against the enemy aircraft. The US
Navy’s fighting ships came off badly, with the largest loss
of life being on board the destroyer USS Peary. Eighty-eight
men of the Navy were killed on board, in the water nearby
or of injuries received. Peary was hit by two of the bombs
dropped by the 71 Val dive bombers. She sank within 15
minutes of the start of the raid off Darwin’s Esplanade and
one of her recovered guns points to the wreck site today.
President Obama journeyed to that spot in November
2011, where he made a speech. It was Douglas Lockwood
in 1966 who came up with the phrase Australia’s Pearl
Harbour: the title of the first book written about the attack.
It is an apt name, and President Obama used that phrase
in his speech. It binds us together to that terrible day in
Hawaii where America lost so many of its own.
Fourteen men died on board another Clemson-class
destroyer, the USS William B Preston. Converted to a
seaplane tender and carrying a full load of fuel, the Preston
was fortunately equipped with many spare machineguns
which were swapped in and out of her seaplane charges.
These were mounted on rails on the stern, and as the
ship slipped her anchor and accelerated to manoeuvre
defensively she gave a hot reception to any of the dive
bombers who attacked her. Nevertheless, she was so badly
hit the stern section nearly came away from the ship as it
raced for the open sea. Later, Lieutenant Herb Kriloff tells
us in his book Officer of the Deck the US Navy buried their
dead over the side, and so too there is a patch of sea off
Darwin that is always American, just as there is in Darwin
Harbour. Herb later courted and met an Aussie girl; they
went to the States but later chose to live in Melbourne.
The American civilian ships also were struck badly. Two US
seamen died on board the freighters SS Portmar and USAT
Meigs, which came under bombing and strafing attack.
The Meigs was sunk, as was companion freighter Mauna
Loa. Outside the harbour freighters in American service
but manned by Filipino crews were sunk, the Florence D
and Don Isidro also seeing lives lost, with the Don Isidro’s
US Army defence team losing lives as they fired their
machineguns at the attacking aircraft from on top of the
vessel’s superstructure.
Many other civilian freighters were also semi-protected
by armed forces members manning machineguns. Four
members of the US Army 148th Field Artillery Regiment
died on board the freighter Tulagi while it was under attack
in the harbour.
A total of 114 US servicemen were Killed in Action out of
the 235 people who died on the day. If those who were
contracted to America are added, that gives a total of
128 United States citizens and contractors who died in
the 19 February attacks. The precise figure for the total
fatalities of the day has been variable over the years, but
the Northern Territory Library Roll of Honour, which has
done a sterling job of revising the total list of those killed,
now stands at 235. More than half of those who died were
fighting for the USA.
US involvement was not to end with the action of the
19th. There were many more air raids into Darwin, and at
least 107 across northern Australia.2 Broome was struck
by nine Zero fighters on 3 March. Eighty-six people died,
many of them evacuees, women and children included,
who had been evacuated south from the Dutch colonial
possessions. Those who died were in the harbour in
seaplanes – airliners of the 1940s – when the nine fighters
arrived after an immense over-water flight, guided by
their navigation aircraft. Not knowing there were civilians
packed on board, the enemy aircraft strafed and cannoned,
turning the seaplanes into flaming wrecks. They sank where
they were, and their wrecks can still be seen at low tide
off Broome. Other aircraft, some carrying US Servicemen,
were attacked by the Zeros and brought down.
An American also had the dubious honour of being the first
to fall in a fight off Australia’s coast, even before the carrier
strike. On 15 February, four days before the first bombing
Don Isidro, beached and burnt out (Lewis Collection)
www.territoryremembers.nt.gov.au
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Lt John Glover’s P-40 Kittyhawk (Courtesy Bob Alford)
of Darwin, Lieutenant Robert Buel of the 3rd Pursuit
Squadron was killed in action off Bathurst Island fighting
a Japanese aircraft. He and his aircraft have never been
found. Later, other Kittyhawk pilots died.
Then the bomber casualties started.
In November Sergeant Glen Campbell was killed in
combat on board a Martin B-26 Marauder off Bathurst
Island. In January 1943, Corporal Robert Rafferty lost
his life on board a B-24 Liberator. So too did Sergeant
Harold Helzer who was killed over the Banda Sea.
On 11 June the entire 12-man crew of a Liberator was
lost over the Timor Sea. On 23 June, in an unusual
action, all 10 members of a US bomber were lost when it
was rammed by a Japanese Kate bomber over the Flores
Sea.
The other USA deaths followed thick and fast;
B-24 bombers sometimes with all of the crews, and
occasionally with one or two members who were aircrew
- gunners usually, trying to ward off fighter attack. But
accidents took other American lives, for example when
two members of the United States Army died when the
Qantas flying boat Corinthian was sunk in Darwin harbor,
during a landing accident.
A common factor for almost all of these is that the
aircraft was lost and has never been seen again. The
planes took the crews to the bottom of the sea with
them. So around the Northern Territory, or in its waters,
there are many unmarked graves of members of the
USA’s World War II fighting forces.
And the story does not end there. There were many
other American stories of deaths that are not fully
recognised. For example, thousands of drivers traversed
the Stuart Highway, then little better than a track,
to bring vital supplies north. Americans died in the
inevitable motor accidents. There were 41 airfields
around the Northern Territory by the end of the war.
US citizens died in construction work, some simply
succumbing to tropical diseases.
Many thousands of Americans began to be based in the
Top End or staged through it as the war against Japan
pushed back the enemy. The enemy raids continued
on an almost weekly basis until the end of November
1943, while radar and fighters fought the bombers.
Eventually the Allies began to launch raiding missions
into the land masses north of Australia. The price was
heavy. Just including those who died near the Top End
www.territoryremembers.nt.gov.au
coastline or on land, there are 451 Americans listed
on the Memorial Wall at the Darwin Military Museum:
121 United States Navy; 311 United States Army Air
Forces, and 19 US Army names, over a quarter of the
total 1672 remembered.
The fighting men of the States and their compatriots
gave their all, and victory was won by the Allies against
the forces of totalitarianism. 19 February 1942 was
the beginning of a fruitful union between America
and Australia that eventually saw Allied victory in the
Pacific and which continues today.
America and Australia shared the causes of freedom of
speech, of association, of religion and of mateship. In an
uncertain world then we needed an ally of shared causes.
In an uncertain world now we need that ally still, and we
are prepared to come to the fight with our flag.
We in Australia don’t really appreciate what America
did for us in WWII. We must never forget the battles
of World War II. We must never forget the sacrifices
of our ally on our soil. Darwin’s battlefront saw the
beginning of the Alliance which serves us well in the
uncertainties of today.
References
1. See Carrier Attack, Avonmore Books. The
three other submarines of the Sixth Submarine
Squadron were part of the force which struck
from the carriers on the 19th.
2. Ed: research is still ongoing in this area. Incursions
is a better raid than raids. Reconnaissance flights
preceded raids, and without the former the latter
would not have been launched: an observer’s
summary of whether there were ships worth
attacking was extremely valuable. Sometimes the
reconnaissance aircraft was attacked, and fought
back.
Dr Tom Lewis OAM is the author of 12 military history books
and a former naval officer, in which capacity he commanded a
US team in Baghdad in the Iraq war of 2006.
Sources for this article are contained generally in Carrier Attack,
by Dr Tom Lewis and Peter Ingman, Avonmore Books, 2013.
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