An Awkward Truth: The Bombing Of Darwin, February 1942
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Yellowed
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
On the morning of 19 February 1942, the skies above Darwin erupted in a devastating assault that would become the largest single attack ever carried out by a foreign power on Australian soil — yet for decades, the full story remained buried beneath layers of government secrecy and wartime propaganda. An Awkward Truth chronicles the harrowing Japanese air raid on Darwin, in which 188 enemy aircraft — a force larger than that which struck Pearl Harbor — unleashed destruction on the northern Australian port city, killing hundreds and shattering the myth of an impregnable continent. Peter Grose meticulously reconstructs the chaos of that February morning, drawing on survivor testimonies, declassified military records, and archival research to present a narrative that is as gripping as it is sobering. Grose's account is a masterwork of narrative history, confronting the uncomfortable truth of how Australian and American authorities deliberately suppressed and distorted the facts of the attack to avoid mass panic and preserve fragile wartime morale. The book argues powerfully that the official cover-up — downplaying casualties and damage — robbed the Darwin bombing of its rightful place in the national consciousness. Written with clarity, authority, and quiet moral outrage, An Awkward Truth forces a reckoning with the gap between wartime myth and historical reality, leaving the reader to wonder: what else has been hidden in plain sight?
Author: Peter Grose
Format: Paperback
Genre: Australian history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Yellowed
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
On the morning of 19 February 1942, the skies above Darwin erupted in a devastating assault that would become the largest single attack ever carried out by a foreign power on Australian soil — yet for decades, the full story remained buried beneath layers of government secrecy and wartime propaganda. An Awkward Truth chronicles the harrowing Japanese air raid on Darwin, in which 188 enemy aircraft — a force larger than that which struck Pearl Harbor — unleashed destruction on the northern Australian port city, killing hundreds and shattering the myth of an impregnable continent. Peter Grose meticulously reconstructs the chaos of that February morning, drawing on survivor testimonies, declassified military records, and archival research to present a narrative that is as gripping as it is sobering. Grose's account is a masterwork of narrative history, confronting the uncomfortable truth of how Australian and American authorities deliberately suppressed and distorted the facts of the attack to avoid mass panic and preserve fragile wartime morale. The book argues powerfully that the official cover-up — downplaying casualties and damage — robbed the Darwin bombing of its rightful place in the national consciousness. Written with clarity, authority, and quiet moral outrage, An Awkward Truth forces a reckoning with the gap between wartime myth and historical reality, leaving the reader to wonder: what else has been hidden in plain sight?