- Author
- Gale, Lieutenant Commander M.B. , VRD, RANR (Retd.)
- Subjects
- Ship histories and stories, Naval history, History - WW2
- Tags
-
- RAN Ships
- HMAS Platypus
- Publication
- June 1987 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
Darwin, suddenly, was a busy port. In addition to the arrival of the Yanks, a realisation that Darwin sooner or later would be attacked caused the authorities to order the evacuation of civilians, and in particular women and children, to Perth and southern ports.
AIF troops started to arrive with plans to reinforce the commando battalion already in Timor, and to occupy Ambon and the islands north of Darwin. Swan and Warrego arrived to supplement the Houston and Perry and to provide a surface escort for a convoy to Timor. The convoy set out, but was turned back after repeated attacks by Jap bombers. Houston received a direct hit on ‘X’ turret, Swan and Warrego ran out of H.A. ammunition, and Perry developed defects in several of her guns.
They arrived back in Darwin on l8th February. The Houston landed her dead and sailed, the troop ships unloaded their troops. The cargo passenger liner Neptuna was alongside the main wharf and she had in No. 3 hold, 200 depth charges, and 200 tons of 4” H.A. ammunition on consignment to me. I went on board to arrange for Warrego and Swan to go alongside the next morning and replenish their ammunition. The Chief Officer invited me to stay for dinner, an opportunity not to be missed, as compared with our fare, that of a first class passenger liner was sumptuous. I still have the menu of that dinner.
The 19th February dawned (it was my 28th birthday) and my first job was to take an ordnance artificer across to the Perry to see if we could help with her gunnery defects. We got her fixed up and I had been back on ‘Plats’ for only about 10 minutes when the first of the bombs arrived. The same carrier group which had attacked Pearl Harbour was now attacking Darwin.
The ‘Plats’ was moored to a buoy approximately 500 yards from the main wharf. The first stick of bombs fell on the Post Office and the second on the main wharf and Neptuna and Barossa, a freighter with a cargo of logs, which was berthed inshore of Neptuna. One bomb passed through the saloon of the Neptuna and set her on fire. Then the dive-bombers came in. The scene was one of considerable confusion, all of the ships which were at anchor were trying to get under way, but the merchant ships, which only the day before had been full of troops, never had a chance, the Japs sank them all.
Swan had cast off from Neptuna and with guns blazing, was backing out into the harbour, the US destroyer Perry with every gun in action was attacked repeatedly; bomber after bomber dived on her; I saw one bomb go straight down one of her funnels; she was sinking by the stern, and finally went under with her forecastle gun still firing.
Ships were on fire and sinking everywhere. The hospital ship Manunda was hit and on fire, but strangely, the corvette Katoomba was in the floating dry dock and neither she nor the dock were touched, neither was the oil fuel installation ashore. These two factors suggested to us that the Japs were saving these facilities for their own use when they subsequently took Darwin.
The ‘Plats’ was not hit, but I watched a 1000 lb bomb come through our wireless aerials and it hit the Mavie, an ex-pearling lugger which was berthed alongside us. The shock of the bomb disintegrated Mavie, and seemed to lift the ‘Plats’ about 6’ out of the water. It smashed our condenser intakes which put our engines out of action, and we could not steam. It also smashed just about all of the crockery and the bathroom floor tiles in the ship.
Our 4” low angle gun was of little use, but our 4” H.A. gun hardly stopped firing. The trouble was that we did not have a predictor, or high angle control system, and could only fire barrages in front of attacking planes. We burst one shell right under one bomber, it lifted and spun in the air, and crashed on the far side of the boom wharf.
Our two motor boats were under way, and together with most other small auxiliary craft which didn’t rate a bomb, they were being strafed by the Zero fighters who had come down to be in it. Nevertheless they did a magnificent job picking up survivors from sinking ships and helping to put out fires.