While on Australian soil the Japanese even took some 8 mm movie footage of what they saw. As it turned out they had landed only 25 kms from where the RAAF were several weeks later to start building their secret airfield at Truscott.
The only Japanese force to land in Australia during World War II was a reconnaissance party that landed in the Kimberley region of Western Australia on the 19th of January 1944 to investigate reports that the Allies were building large bases in the region.
The US naval victory at the battle of Midway, in early June 1942, removed the Japan's capability to invade Australia by destroying its main aircraft carriers. This made it safe for Australia to begin to transfer military power to fight the Japanese in Australian Papua and New Guinea.
In early 1942, elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) proposed an invasion of mainland Australia. This proposal was opposed by the Imperial Japanese Army and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who regarded it as being unfeasible, given Australia's geography and the strength of the Allied defences.
On 23 January 1942, the war crept closer to Australia - Rabaul in New Britain fell to the Japanese. On January 30, the Australian defenders of Ambon Island surrendered. On February 19, just four days after the fall of Singapore, the first ever air raid on the Australian mainland occurred.
These stereotypes served to conflate Nikkei-Australians with the soldiers in the Japanese military that Australia witnessed during wartime, who were regarded as “subhuman beast[s]” and “vermin” (Saunders 1994, 325–27).
As a result, the Allied powers including Australia were at war with Japan as well. During this period, the Australian mainland came under direct enemy attack for the first time in history, with Japanese bombing attacks on Northern Australia and an attack on Sydney Harbour by Japanese midget submarines.
About two thirds agreed that Japan had planned to invade Australia in 1942. Around three quarters tended to agree that the Kokoda campaign had saved Australia from invasion and that the Brisbane Line strategy actually entailed abandoning northern Australia to the Japanese.
If successful, Operation FS would achieve two strategic objectives for the Japanese: First, it would critically isolate Australia, whose northern coast was only a few hundred miles from Port Moresby. This could have forced Australia to withdraw from the war, or in the worst case, even suffer partial invasion.
Australia came under attack for the first time when Japanese forces mounted two air bombing raids. The two attacks, which were planned and led by the commander responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbour ten weeks earlier, involved 54 land based bombers.
1957: Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke said to the people of Australia: "It is my official duty, and my personal desire, to express to you and through you to the people of Australia, our heartfelt sorrow for what occurred in the war."
In early 1942 elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) proposed an invasion of Australia. This proposal was opposed by the Japanese Army and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who regarded it as being unfeasible given Australia's geography and the strength of the Allied defences.
[1] The Australian Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, announced the end of the war against Japan via Radio 2CY Canberra at 9.30 am on the same day: Fellow citizens, the war is over. The Japanese Government has accepted the terms of surrender imposed by the Allied Nations and hostilities will now cease.
Over 22,000 Australians became prisoners of war of the Japanese in south-east Asia. The wave of Japanese victories, ending with the capture of the Netherlands East Indies in March 1942, left in its wake a mass of Allied prisoners of war, including many Australians.
Of the 22,376 Australian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese, some 8,031 died while in captivity. After the end of the war, War Crimes Trials were held to investigate reports of atrocities, massacres and other causes of death.
Often called 'Australia's Pearl Harbour', the bombing of Darwin by aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy began on 19 February 1942, killing more than 230 people and destroying ships, buildings and infrastructure.
The Australians troops were horrified to find that the Japanese had been eating both the wounded and dead Australians who had been left behind on the previous day. Corporal Bill Hedges describes the ghastly scene: "The Japanese had cannibalised our wounded and dead soldiers..
Kokoda, as part of the Battle for Australia, saved Australia from invasion. It was only in the Second World War that this country came under threat of invasion — this was not true in the First World War. And the invasion force was being assembled and was thwarted really only at the Coral Sea.
Australia's declaration of war on Japan was a response to the coordinated attacks by the Japanese on United States and British territories across the Asia-Pacific region.
More than 600 Australian soldiers were killed and 1600 wounded. More than 10,000 Japanese also died. Kokoda was a desperate and vicious campaign that saw enormous suffering on both sides.
The Japanese first attacked the Australian mainland on 19 February 1942 when they launched a devastating air raid on Darwin in the Northern Territory. Two weeks later, more aircraft attacked Broome in Western Australia killing about 70 people.
The German soldiers feared and respected the skills of the Australians.
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of the Commonwealth of Australia and its national interests. It has three branches: the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
And the German learned to fear Australians, because they were reckless, ruthless - and revengeful. During the Third Battle of Ypres, autumn 1917, the ANZAC's (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) met the Germans on high ground, in front of Polygon Wood.