Bombing of Darwin
1942 CE.
Shown on the map at -12.475°, 130.850°.
On 19 February 1942, 188 Japanese aircraft, in two separate raids, bombed the Australian town of Darwin, ships in Darwin Harbour and the town's two airfields in an attempt to prevent the Allies from using them as bases to contest the invasion of Timor and Java during World War II. This was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. Darwin was very lightly defended relative to the size of this attack, and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses upon Allied forces at little cost to themselves. The urban areas of Darwin also suffered some damage from the raids and there were a number of civilian casualties. More than half of Darwin's civilian population left the area permanently, before or immediately after the attack. The two Japanese air raids were the first, and largest, of more than 100 air raids against Australia during 1942–1943. The event happened just four days after the Fall of Singapore, when a combined Commonwealth force surrendered to the Japanese, the largest surrender in British history.
Text from the Wikipedia article Bombing of Darwin, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.