ABSTRACT
The lesson of Darwin should at least have prompted Australia's military and political leaders far away in the south to look hard at the situation in the west. If the Japanese considered it worth bombarding Darwin with such a huge force, then the four principal towns of north-western Australia, Wyndham, Derby, Broome and Port Hedland, must now also be considered extremely vulnerable. A single survivor made it back to Broome from the Liberator, a US Marine Corps sergeant who spent thirty hours in the water before eventually swimming to safety. The Liberator had just landed doctors and medical supplies from Perth and was taking a consignment of evacuees south when the alarm sounded. It had tried to beat the Japanese. Shipping was now halted to all the north-west towns because it was too dangerous with Japanese submarines patrolling the coast, and the only civilian flights still operating into Broome were two Lockheed 10s of MacRobertson Miller Airlines.
