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Wreckage of the Dutch flying boats is visible during king tides to this day.
Australia’s Pearl Harbour
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The United States had its Pearl Harbour in December 1941; Australia’s Pearl Harbour was to occur just three months later, at Broome on Australia’s remote north west coast.
There are similarities between the two attacks – both were surprise raids carried out by Japanese Navy aircraft, both resulted in minimal losses to the attacking force, both inflicted heavy casualties in life and Allied aircraft losses. By coincidence, pearling was the main industry in Broome, which is located on the shores of Roebuck Bay- an Australian “pearl harbour”.
Early 1942 was a dark period for the Allied forces, as Japanese troops were advancing on all fronts in the Asian-Pacific theatre of war. Singapore had fallen, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) was on the point of collapse, Darwin was about to be bombed, and the victorious Japanese forces were advancing on all fronts. Towards the end of February, the Allied High Command considered that a Japanese attack on Java could be expected within a week to ten days (Allied air power-mainly Brewster Buffalos- would cease to exist). As a consequence, it was recommended that allAllied personnel and their families be evacuated from the island to the safety of Australia.
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