Hypotetical scenario. Japanese executing the invasion of Australia.
Article on English Wikipedia| Scenario in dates: |
| October 8, 1931: |
In Australia - General John Monash dies in Melbourne, commander of the Australian Corps on the Western Front during the First World War, and one of the most capable Allied field commanders. In the summer of 1918 he planned an allied counterattack in the battle of Amiens, which successfully started Allied Hundred Days Offensive leading to the defeat of Germany. |
| March 19, 1932: |
Australia - in Sydney is open the famous Harbor Bridge, a gigantic steel construction of the arched bridge that bridges Port Jackson bay. |
| December 10, 1932: |
Australia - a war led by the Australian Army in Western Australia against the overwhelmed emu birds ends in a shame defeat officially. |
| November 7, 1938: |
Australia - Three RAF Vickers Wellesley light bombers land in Darwin after a long-distance non-stop flight from Ismailia, Egypt. With a length of 11,500 km, this mission sets a new world record that will never be exceeded in the case of a single-engine piston aircraft. |
| October 20, 1939: |
In Melbourne - The prime minister, Robert Menzies, announces the reintroduction of compulsory military training, for home service, in January 1940. |
| October 7, 1941: |
In Australia - after the government reorganisation John Curtin of the Labor Party become Prime minister of Australia. |
| November 11, 1941: |
Australia - On the Remembrance Day, the Australian War Memorial is opened in the capital city of Canberra, a national memorial to the fighting members of the Commonwealth of Australia, including the War Museum. Prepared since the end of World War I, but due to various difficulties and the Great Depression was completed during the new world conflict. To this day is widely regarded as one of the most significant memorials of its type in the world. |
| February 17, 1944: |
In the South Pacific - Japanese submarine I-25 launches a Yokosuka seaplane on a reconnaissance flight over Sydney, Australia. |
| February 19, 1942: |
In Australia - 150 Japanese aircraft from four of the carriers which fought at Pearl Harbor, attack Darwin in Northern Australia. The attack damages harbor installations and sinks a number of warships. |
| February 22, 1942: |
From Washington - General Douglas MacArthur is ordered to leave the Philippines and establish new headquarters in Australia. |
| February 22, 1942: |
Indian Ocean - The 7th Australian Division, moving from North Africa to help endangered Burma, is being redirected home to defend Australia at the behest of Australian Prime Minister John Curtin. British forces have nothing to defend Rangoon in Burma. The refusal of Prime Minister Churchill´s orders becomes a critical moment with far-reaching consequences, and Curtin thus imaginarily turns not only the helm of the transporting vessels, but also the helm of the history of Australia and Burma. However, the event is primarily a psychological victory for Japan, as it is the result of panic after the Japanese raid on Darwin, Australia (February 19). |
| March 3, 1942: |
Australia - Nine Japanese A6M Zeke fighters attack flying boats and other aircraft in the port and airport of Broome, which, due to its location on the northwest coast of Australia, has become an intermediate station for the evacuation of Western civilians from Java. The Japanese destroy a total of 22 Allied aircraft, including a B-24 fully loaded with wounded soldiers. A total of 88 lives are lost. |
| March 20, 1942: |
Australia - Dutch minesweeper HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen arrives in the port of Fremantle. It is the last Allied vessel to escape from Java after the Japanese invasion. During the escape, the crew used only night shifts and during the day mooring off the coast of the islands with thorough camouflage of the vessel using jungle foilage. |
| March 27, 1942: |
In Australia - General Blamey returns to Australia with troops from North Africa. He is appointed to command Allied land forces in Australia. |
| May 31, 1942: |
Australia - Over night three Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarines, each with a two-member crew, enters Sydney Harbour, avoiding the partially constructed Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net, and attempts to sink Allied warships. Two of them are detected and attacked before they could successfully engage any Allied vessels, and the crews scuttled their submarines and killed themselves. These submarines were later recovered by the Allies. The third submarine attempts to torpedo the heavy cruiser USS Chicago (CA-29), but instead sank the unarmed ferry HMAS Kuttabul, killing 21 sailors. This midget submarine´s fate was unknown until 2006, when amateur scuba divers discovered the wreck off Sydney´s northern beaches. |
| June 4, 1942: |
Australia - off the coast of Victoria, the Australian cargo ship SS Iron Crown transporting manganese ore is torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-27. The vessel sinks within 60 seconds with 38 sailors, five crew members rescues. The ship´s wreck will be found in 2019. |
| June 8, 1942: |
Australia - Japanese submarines I-24 and I-21 briefly and with little damage bombard Sydney and Newcastle ports. One American Aircobra fighter is lost with its pilot Lieutenant Cantello after an accident in his arbitrary action to find the source of the shelling Sydney. Fort Scratchley coastal battery at Newcastle in one sharp action over its lifetime fires ineffectively. |
| July 12, 1942: |
Australia - After an aerial collision between two P-40 fighters defending Darwin, US fighter pilot George Preddy credited by two damaged Japanese aircrafts, ends up in hospital with severe injuries. After convalescence, he will be transferred to the European theater, where he will become the highest fighter ace on the P-51, but unfortunately he will be shot down and killed by friendly anti-aircraft fire. He will be buried in France next to his brother William, also a fighter, shot down over České Budějovice. |
| September 19, 1942: |
Australia - A new centralized intelligence unit ATIS (Allied Translator and Interpreter Section) is formed in Brisbane at the instigation of General MacArthur. The organization, composed mainly of language specialists from the USA and Australia, is designed to systematize the exploitation of captured documents and the interrogation of prisoners of war. The staff of this important unit will gradually grow from the original 35 to 4,000 personnel, most of which were second generation Japanese Americans, known as Nisei. |
| October 29, 1942: |
From Australia - General Vasey is appointed to the command of the Australian 7th Division, replacing General Allen who has been judged as insufficiently forceful. |
| January 27, 1943: |
Australia - In an attempt to divert attention away from the evacuation of Guadalcanal, the Japanese submarine I-165 shells by deck gun coastal village of Port Gregory at night. The attack does not cause any damage, and the Allied Navy command will only learn about it a week later from the captured and decrypted Japanese message. The submarine will not damage any allied vessel during the voyage, and the event is a graphic example of the poor planning and inadequate doctrine so common in the Japanese submarine force throughout the Pacific War. |
| March 2, 1943: |
Australia - Australian fighter ace Clive "Killer" Caldwell with 22 kills in North Africa opens the score on the Pacific battlefield when he shoots down Japanese A6M Zero and B5N Kate over Darwin in his Spitfire. Before being withdrawn from the front line, he will claim another 8 victories over Japanese aircraft and the war will end as the top Australian ace of World War II and as the most successful Allied pilot on the P-40. |
| April 14, 1943: |
Australia - During carrying out a series of dummy runs and torpedo attacks on the HMAS Burra-bra ferry in Jervis Bay, two Beaufort bombers crash with the loss of both crews. Since it is an exhibition for war corponents on board an Australian vessel, the accident is very well recorded on film tape. |
| September 15, 1943: |
Australia - On the night of September 16, the West Coast town of Onslow is bombed by Japanese planes. It´s the southernmost point a Japanese bomb dropped on during the Pacific War. |
| November 12, 1943: |
Australia - Japanese G4M Betty bombers bomb targets around Darwin. One of the attackers is shot down by a Spitfire fighter. This is the last of a hundred Japanese raids on the Australian mainland during the Pacific War. |
| January 17, 1944: |
In Australia - Meat rationing is introduced. |
| January 19, 1944: |
Northwest Australia - A small reconnaissance group of Japanese officers lands on a deserted coast in the York Sound in Kimberley region. The next day it pulls back in its inconspicuous fishing boat Matsu Kikan. These are the only Axis soldiers who landed on the Australian continent during World War II. |
| December 24, 1944: |
Pacific Ocean - German submarine U-862 type IXD2 sinks off the coast of Australia the U.S.-registered liberty ship Robert J. Walker. U-862 is the only German submarine to operate in the Pacific Ocean during the Second World War and sinking of Robert J. Walker is the only success it have achieved in this area. |
| July 5, 1945: |
Australia - war leader a the Prime Minister of Australia John Curtin dies in Canberra. In few days Ben Chifley is elected as Curtin´s successor. |
| July 13, 1945: |
In Australia - Ben Chifley, the Treasurer, is selected to be Prime Minister in place of the deceased John Curtin, an the interim prime minister F.M. Forde. |
| August 15, 1945: |
In Australia - People find out about the Japanese surrender as the get to work. Celebrations continue all night. |
| August 30, 1945: |
In Canberra - At a meeting of the Australian Advisory War Council, it is decided that the Council should be dissolved immediately after representatives of the Opposition state that the necessity for its existence has disappeared in view of the end of the war. |
| September 2, 1945: |
From Melbourne - The Australian Minister of Defence announces that the South-West Pacific Command has come to an end. All the area south of the Philippines have been assigned to British Commonwealth control and operational control of Australian forces, vested in General MacArthur in 1942, has reverted to the Australian government. |
| October 2, 1946: |
United States - in Colombus, the state capital of Ohio, lands a Lockheed P2V-1 Neptune maritime patrol aircraft after a three-day nonstop flight from Perth, Australia. With a length of 18,000 km, it sets a new world record for 16 years. |
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| Literature sources: |  | Šnajdr, Miroslav: Airacobra v amerických službách : USAAF 1941-1944 (Aircobra in US service), Votobia, 1996, Olomouc | Pejčoch, Ivo: Australský tank AC 1 Sentinel (Australian tank AC 1 Sentinel), HPM No. 7/1994
Kovář, Daniel: Commonwealth Wirraway, HPM No. 5 a 6/1999
Pejčoch, Ivo: Ko-Hyoteki japonské miniponorky (Ko-Hyoteki Japanese minisubmarines), HPM No. 12/2005
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