On Wednesday 18th February 1942 the Japanese air force bombed Darwin. This fact is known to most Australians, but very few know exactly what happened. The War Cabinet immediately ordered a news black-out, and the propaganda they released at the time has since become part of Australia’s verbal history. But the sequence of events in Darwin that day certainly did not reflect the military honour that the War cabinet wished Australians to believe. On the contrary, for what really happened was a combination of chaos, panic and in most cases, cowardice on an unprecedented scale. During that day most of the RAAF ran into the bush and took days to round up, one man even turned up in Melbourne, and after the raid the city was looted by the provosts, the very people who were supposed to be protecting the property of those who had been evacuated. The author was the first writer to be given access to all the official reports of the time. As a result he has been able to reveal exactly what happened on that dreadful day, a day which Sir Paul Hasluck later described as a ‘day of national shame’. pp. 224 illusts First Edition #0920 ISBN 10: 0454002521ISBN 13: 9780454002522