The Bombing of Darwin February 1942. The bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942 is the battle Australia tries to forget. Although there was much to be proud of that day courage, friendship, determination and improvisation the dark side of the story still lingers looting, desertion, and a calamitous failure of Australian leadership. The Japanese struck with the same carrier-borne force that devastated Pearl Harbor only ten weeks earlier. There was a difference they dropped more bombs, killed more civilians, and sank more ships in Darwin than in Pearl Harbor. It remains the single deadliest event in countrys history yet, for shame about its