Wounded Eagle

Dr Peter Ewer

The bombing of Darwin and Australia's air defence scandal. In February 1942, the Royal Australian Air Force received its first warning that the Japanese were on their way to bomb an Australian target. Wing Commander Sturt de Burgh Griffith, the station commander at RAAF Darwin, took a message, relayed from the radio station at the Aboriginal mission on Bathurst Island, that a large formation of aircraft was overhead. These planes went on to bomb Darwin, while others flew over Sydney and Melbourne, attacking Broome and smashing Australian air units in Malaya, Singapore and the Netherland East Indies. Based on archival research in Australia and the United Kingdom, Author Peter Ewer's book Wounded Eagle completely rewrites the early war history of the RAAF, and exposes the conservative politians who took decisions that left Australia without an air defence system in our greatest hour of need. Hard cover, photographs, 240 pages.