Air assault on Australia

摘要

The Japanese air attacks on Darwin and northwestern Australia during 1942-43 had a profound affect on Australia. For some months, the defence of the strategically-vital port of Darwin, and the Northern Territory, largely rested with the US Army Air Forces. However, from July 1942, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) fighter squadrons took over, and by early 1943 a Spitfire Wing comprising two Australian units and one British assumed the mantle. They fought off the Japanese raids, which by the end of the year had ended. The area around Darwin by then boasted a clutch of airfields from which RAAF Beaufighters, Beauforts, Hudsons and later Liberators conducted an effective campaign across the Timor Sea to the islands of the Dutch East Indies. This well-researched and presented book, profusely illustrated with relevant photographs of the men and machines involved on both sides, covers the campaigns fought over and from Darwin. The excellent text is complemented by a selection of pilot profiles and a number of highly detailed appendices tabulating, for example, every Japanese raid on the Northern Territory. Published by the Aviation Society of the Northern Territory, this is an authoritative account in an easy digestible format. Well worth the investment.