Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and Australian caretaker PM Scott Morrison at bombing of Darwin remembrance ceremony
on November 16, 2018 (Photo courtesy Australia’s ABC
News).
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Darwin, in
Australia’s Northern Territory, on November 16, 2018, to honour those killed during the Japanese
bombing raids on Darwin in World War II. Prime Minister Abe and his Australian counterpart, (current until May 2019) Prime Minister Morrison, laid wreaths
for those killed.
The largest Japanese air raids on Darwin were on February 19, 1942. The 2 raids that day, consisted of 242 Japanese aircraft launched from land and from 4 aircraft carriers. The February 19 raids killed 243 civilians and military as well as destroying several navy and
civilian ships, allied aircraft and much of Darwin. Darwin is a city now, but was a town of less than 10,000 in 1942.
Carrier Force
The
aircraft carrier force, that bombed Darwin, consisted of Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū, and Sōryū and a powerful escort, including the battleships/cruisers Hiei, Kirishima, Tone and Chikuma. All
four carriers had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor at the start of the Pacific War. All 4 aircraft carriers
were destroyed 4 months later at the Battle
of Midway on June 4 and 5, 1942.
Japanese aircraft later bombed Darwin, Broome and Townsville about 100 times total, up until November 1943.
On November 16, 2018 Abe and Morrison also discussed closer military ties and strategic partnerships.
Pete
5 comments:
Hi Pete
I appreciate PM Abe’s visit. But, Japanese PM should have visited Darwin a decade ago. Then the PM Rudd visited Hiroshima in 2008.
Regards
It's not a good look to pretend to be the victim when a few hundreds people died, when in Japan's case hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by the "allies".
These are not comparable, and to pretend like Japan should say sorry to Australia, when Japan itself suffered literally 1000x the atrocities of war at the hands of the "allies", is just ridiculous.
It's kind of like a man asking another man to say sorry to him when he punched him in the past, when this man asking the other to say sorry had since killed the other guy's family. Don't you find that ridiculous?
Hi AzusaYua
You have to ask yourself who started the 1905-1945 wars in Asia in the first place!?
Why did Japanese troops invade, slaughter and starve millions in Korea, China-Manchuria, all countries in Southeast Asia, islands in the Pacific (including Hawaii), Papua New Guinea and bomb towns in Australia? Who enslaved and starved allied and Asian prisoners of war?
It is Japan's Warlords (like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideki_Tojo) in the 1930s-1940s who ordered millions of Japanese troops and Japanese civilians to their deaths rather than surrender. This was after all hope of Japanese victory had been lost by 1944.
Millions of civilians on both sides died.
It was Japan's Emperor in August 1945 who manfully decided that the Will of Japan's Warlords to prolong the war until ALL JAPANESE WERE DEAD was wrong. So he ordered the Warlords and all Japanese to surrender.
Look to the former Japanese troops, airmen, sailors, politicians, businessmen and civilians who are still alive who admit Japan started these wars.
They join with their past victims in remembering and understanding.
Regards
Pete
Hi Pete
I do not deny invasive nature of Empire of Japan at all. It should be criticized.
But, your comment on Korea needs further explanation, because it is against South Korea’s historical demographical data [1]. Japanese annexation of Korea was from 1910 to 1945. The population of Korea increased from 12,487,000 in 1900 to in 13,832,000 in 1910 (+578,000 people, +4.6%, average 0.46%/year). After the annexation, the population increased from 13,832,000 in 1910 to 25,120,000 in 1944 [2] (+11,288,000 people, +81.6%, average +1.86%/year). If Empire of Japan slaughtered and starved millions in Korea, the population would have decreased, but the population in the annexation era far increased than the pre-annexation era. The annexation of Korea was conducted in 1910 by treaty, not by armed forces. There was no war between Korea and Empire of Japan.
Again, invasive nature of Empire of Japan should be heavily criticized.
[1] http://www.populstat.info/Asia/skoreac.htm
[2] Year 1945 was excluded because of confusion of Empire of Japan.
Regards
Anonymous [at December 22, 2019 at 7:53 PM]
Most of the killing, dislocation and consequent starvation of civilians caused by Japanese troops occurred in China-Manchuria not the much smaller area and population of Korea. See
"The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century.[29] It accounted for the majority of civilian and military casualties in the Pacific War, with between 10 and 25 million Chinese civilians and over 4 million Chinese and Japanese military personnel dying from war-related violence, famine, and other causes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War
Perhaps millions of Chinese-Manchurian refugees flowed into Korea up to 1944 hiding a decline in numbers of Koreans. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War#Chinese
"In addition, the war created 95 million refugees.[168]"
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