Australia Marks 70th Anniversary WWII Bombing of Darwin

Australia began marking the 70th anniversary of Japan's World War II bombing of Darwin Saturday, an event that gave birth to its alliance with the U.S. and is seen as the nation's "Pearl Harbor".

Air raids on the remote northern city of Darwin on February 19, 1942 killed at least 243 people and injured hundreds more in a wave of destruction authorities vastly downplayed at the time.

The bombing, which followed hard on the heels of the fall of Singapore to the Japanese, unleashed panic in the streets of Darwin and was a taste of bombing raids across the country's north which continued until November 1943.

While opening a museum dedicated to the event, Veterans' Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon said the Japanese battle group that covered Darwin's skies in the 1942 air raid were the same group that had bombed Pearl Harbor.

"There were more airplanes in the first wave across Darwin than in the first wave at Pearl Harbor and more bombs were dropped," he said.

"The attack on our north was significant for all of us."

Snowdon said while the Darwin bombing had never had the "Hollywood treatment" accorded to Pearl Harbor, the Australian tragedy in which 89 U.S. sailors from the USS Peary died had "forever cemented us as brothers".

When U.S. President Barack Obama travelled to Australia in November as he launched America's reinvigorated military mission in the Pacific, he toured a memorial to the USS Peary in Darwin, one of the vessels sunk on that day.

At the time, Obama noted that "in a sense it was here in Darwin where our alliance was born in Australia's Pearl Harbor".

U.S. Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich, who on behalf of Obama presented an anti-aircraft shell recovered from a U.S. vessel sunk during the war near Darwin to the new museum, said the city's sacrifice would not be forgotten.

He said Washington saw the roots of the 60-year alliance between Australia and the United States in the northern city, a laid-back tropical settlement known for its crocodiles.

"We renew our commitment -- Australians and Americans together -- to never allow another invasion (on) this soil," Bleich said Saturday.

"We won't forget our past or each other. We are the best of friends and the strongest of allies."