Australia Under Attack: The Bombing of Darwin - 1942

(Hardback)

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Now in hardback, comes the story of the first ever attack on Australia by a foreign power at Darwin on 19 February 1942. To this day, Australia Under Attack remains the most reliable and accurate account of the Darwin bombings. Darwin was bombed in broad daylight by members of the Japanese Carrier Task Force which had been engaged at Pearl Harbour two months earlier. Not a single operational RAAF fighter aircraft was available to meet this attack, imminent and inevitable though it was. At the time of the raid, Douglas Lockwood was a correspondent for the Melbourne Herald in Darwin. In the years that followed, he travelled the world interviewing survivors of and participants in the attack to produce the first complete reconstruction of that tragic day.

Author Bio

Douglas Wright Lockwood (1918-1980), journalist, soldier and author, was born on 9 July 1918 at Natimuk, Victoria, second child of native-born parents Alfred Wright Lockwood, journalist, and his second wife Ida Dorothea, ne Klowss, daughter of a German immigrant. Alfred had four children by a previous marriage. Educated at Natimuk State School, Douglas worked on his father's newspaper, theWest Wimmera Mail, and on newspapers at Camperdown, Tatura and Mildura. In 1941 Lockwood oined the MelbourneHerald. On 4 October that year at the Methodist Church, Wangaratta, he married Ruth Hay, a clerk. Soon afterwards he was sent to Darwin and in February 1942 saw the first enemy bombs fall on Australian soil. Enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force on 15 June, he trained in intelligence and security duties. He served in New Guinea and on Bougainville in 1944-45 with 'V' and 'Z' Field Security sections, and was promoted warrant officer. Following his discharge on 15 June 1945 in Melbourne, he was a war correspondent for theHerald, reporting from the Netherlands East Indies. In 1946 he returned to Darwin and, except for postings to the Herald's Melbourne (1947-48) and London (1954-56) offices, was to remain there until 1968.