The First Attack
Japanese plane route
With many fighters away at war, the people of Darwin were left with very little ammunition, weapons or any way to fight off the ambush. The remaining men that were casually around the base whilst the raid came realised that the little bullets they had were not properly adjusted for this type of fighting and therefore could not aim at the enemy. Although despite this they did manage to shoot down a plane by the man that wore only his towel, boots and helmet, a story that many men that day remembered.
There were ten planes that Australians used to fight off the 260 the Japanese sent, not nearly enough to shoot down just half. Out of these ten, one survived the first raid however only one or two enemy planes plummeted to the ground.
Not only did the Japanese strategies the route of the attack they also mapped out the most important areas of where to bomb. They destroyed the telegraph office, demolished the cable office, shattered the Postmaster's residence which killed many postal workers and the post office with the best bomb shelter in the town took a direct hit. The damage was huge, but this forty minute attack was only the first.