Thread: Feb 19 1942

Can't forget the east coast either, not as severe though.

East Coast Attacks

http://www.ww2australia.gov.au/under.../comenace.html

Out to sea, crews of naval and merchant ships had long contended with threats to their ships and lives. From the start of the war, German surface raiders had ventured into Australian waters, laying mines and intercepting some merchant ships in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The first vessels to be lost to enemy action in Australian waters were victims of mines laid by a German raider off the Victorian coast in 1940.

The main threat to shipping in Australian waters came in 1942 when the Japanese launched a submarine campaign off Australia’s east coast. In the two months after the midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour at the end of May 1942, 14 Allied merchant ships were attacked and six of those were sunk. Some 60 merchant seamen died in these attacks, with 29,000 tons of shipping lost. More merchant ships and the hospital ship Centaur were sunk in a second campaign in 1943.


Newspaper reports of the
submarine attack on the
Eastern suburbs.
[Reproduced with permission
from The Sydney Morning
Herald, 8 June 1942]


The enemy submarines also took some action against shore positions. On 8 June 1942, the Japanese submarine I-24 fired ten rounds at Sydney Harbour in a five-minute period. Only one of the shells exploded, in Bellevue Hill

Coinciding with the shelling of Sydney’s eastern suburbs on 8 June 1942 was a short bombardment off Newcastle, 160 kilometres north of Sydney. At approximately 2.00 am, the Japanese submarine I-21, commanded by Captain Kanji Matsumura, approached Newcastle. Matsumura's orders were to attack the Newcastle shipyards. From about 2.15 am, he fired 34 shells from a position about nine kilometres north-east of Fort Scratchley, at the mouth of the Hunter River. Most of the shells landed in the vicinity of Customs House and the power station. All but one failed to explode but there was still some damage to buildings and houses near Parnell Place, behind Fort Scratchley. The attack lasted about 20 minutes, until just after fortress gunners fired in reply.

A well timed post Ean...... To those that have fallen for our freedom we thank you.... Lest we forget

Thanks Ean,

We found the East Point museum quite fascinating in 2005, didn't realise how bad Darwin was bombed till then

Mrs hh