HMAS Platypus & The Darwin Raid – 1942

Author

Gale, Lieutenant Commander M.B. , VRD, RANR (Retd.)

Subjects

Ship histories and stories, Naval history, History - WW2

Tags

Japanese raid on Darwin, USS Perry

RAN Ships

HMAS Platypus

Publication

June 1987 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)

Suddenly, it was all over, the Japs had gone and all that was left were burning and sinking ships. They came back after lunch, but only to bomb the RAAF drome from high level.

The fire in the Neptuna was out of control and moving towards No. 3 hold which was full of depth charges and ammunition. I warned our captain and he cleared our upper deck just before Neptuna blew up.

That evening Captain Thomas NOIC came on board ‘Plats’ and ordered the ship to be evacuated and all personnel to be put ashore. The reason for this was that as our engines had been damaged and we could not get under way, or steam, we would be a sitting duck for the Japs, who it was expected would return the next day. In addition, it was felt that the ‘Plats’ crew would be better employed defending Darwin in the event of an attempted landing.

However, because we still had a perfectly good 4” H.A. gun and two Lewis guns on board, I requested permission from our Captain, Cmdr. Tonkin RAN to return on board each day with our guns crews. Because of the sitting duck situation, I was granted permission, providing my crews were volunteers. I still have a record of those who volunteered, and it will be seen that they were not all gunnery rates.

In addition, the Engineer Lt. Smith RANR(S) and his artificers returned on board each day to work at repairing our engines.

Whilst all of this was going on, we received a signal from Navy Office which read ‘Expect to be invaded within 5 days. Darwin is to be held at all costs, there will be no withdrawal.’

I am afraid some of us looked at each other and recalled that someone, at some time, had said something which went ‘We who are about to die salute ye,’ for at that time the RAAF was virtually non existent, and the Navy’s 900 personnel outnumbered the Army. The catch was that we had only 400 rifles for 900 men and only 20 rounds of ammunition for each rifle, and we had two Maxim machine guns, which were of Boer War vintage.

In any case, the Japs never came on land, but they did come back by air, not in force, as on 19th February, but for well over a month they came over every day at midday. You could set your watch by them. There were usually about 30 high level bombers, with Zero escort. There were three principal targets, the RAAF drome, the town and naval headquarters, and the harbour and oil fuel tanks. They pattern bombed from about 30,000 ft. They were like a flock of silver birds and from the direction they came in, we could guess who was going to be on the receiving end. When their angle of sight was about 60º you could see the flash in the sun as their bomb doors opened, and by the time they were overhead you could hear the bombs coming like a lot of express trains. It could be a bit unnerving, and on one occasion one of my gun’s crew cracked. He was only a 17 year old boy, but he got over it. The trouble was that without a H.A. control system we could not engage the high level bombers, and we had to just stand and wait for the Zeros to come down to strafe us. We would then engage them with barrage fire. One day a Zero flew straight at us with his guns blazing, we opened fire and turned him off, but as the gun swung and trained, it went off right alongside me, and blew in one of my ears. Some time later when ashore one day, I lost the other one when a bomb landed a bit close to a slit trench in which I was sheltering.