World War Two Civilian MemorialPrint Page

The monument commemorates the nine Darwin Post Office staff (including the Postmaster and his wife and daughter) and Postmaster-General’s Department (PMG) employee Walter Rowling who were killed as a result of the Japanese air-raid on Darwin on the 19th February 1942. 

Rowling was a foreman mechanic with the PMG and had come to Darwin to help install new telephone facilities necessitated by the defence build up. He arrived less than two weeks before the attack. Rowling received head injuries while sheltering in a trench with A.A. Mansfield and Harold Nuttall during the bombing. After the bombing his mates gave him a drink of beer because he was feeling groggy and helped him from the trench.

Rowling was originally taken to the Berrimah Hospital for treatment, before being transferred to the Hospital Ship HMAHS Manunda. He died of wounds at 04:30 on 21 February 1942. He was buried at sea at 11 am. on 21 February 1942.  

The morning of Thursday 19 February 1942 dawned bright and sunny in Darwin. Shops and businesses were open as was the post office (now the site of the Northern Territory's Parliament House). Just before 10.00 am 188 Japanese aircraft appeared overhead and bombs soon began to rain down on the town, harbour and airfield. The raid was led by Mitsuo Fuchida, the same man who led the earlier attack on Pearl Harbour.

There were two raids that morning, the second occurring around noon. Numerous ships in the harbour were sunk, including the American destroyer USS Peary, the transport ship Zealandia, and the munitions ship Neptuna. The wrecks would remain for many years, including the Peary which is today a war memorial.

When the raids were over more than 250 people, both civilian and military, were dead. Among them was Darwin's postmaster Hurtle Bald, his wife Alice and their daughter Iris, and six other post office staff, all killed when the post office building was hit.

Most of the civilian and military personnel who died in the first attacks were buried in makeshift graves on local beaches. In mid 1942 their bodies were relocated to the newly established Berrimah War Cemetery, on Berrimah Road on the south-eastern outskirts of Darwin. By 1943 the cemetery had more than 70 graves. After the war the bodies were exhumed once again and relocated to the Adelaide River War Cemetery, about 100 kilometres south of Darwin, where they remain today.

 

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