The following article appeared in the local newspaper
following the 60th anniversary of the first bombing raid on Darwin on
19th February 1942.
There were two air attacks made on Darwin that day,
planned by the same man who planned the earlier attack on Pearl Harbour,
and utilising many of the same planes and airmen.
The attacks involved 54 land-based bombers and around
188 attack aircraft launched from four Japanese aircraft-carriers in
the Timor Sea. In the first attack, which began just before 10.00 am,
heavy bombers pattern-bombed the harbour and town; dive bombers escorted
by Zero fighters then attacked shipping in the harbour, the military
and civil aerodromes, and the hospital at Berrimah. The attack ceased
after about 40 minutes. The second attack, which began an hour later,
involved high altitude bombing of the RAAF base at Parap and lasted
for around 20 minutes. The two raids killed at least 243 people and
between 300 and 400 were wounded. Twenty military aircraft were destroyed,
8 ships at anchor in the harbour were sunk, and most civil and military
facilities in Darwin were destroyed.
One of the ships sunk was the destroyer USS Peary.
The 1215 ton Peary had been built in 1919, a Clemson class destroyer,
designated DD 126 when launched and commissioned in 1920. With a crew
of 115 men she had been docked at Cavite in Manila Bay when Japanese
aircraft had attacked on December 10 1941. On that occasion only the
brave actions of the minesweeper Whippoorwill had got her out of from
under the Japanese bombs. Her commander, Harry Keith, had been badly
wounded in the attack and had been replaced by Lt Cdr Bermingham who
took her south to Java, steaming out of Manila Bay on December 27. Again
attacked from the air the day before she left, Peary was like a magnet
for the Japanese airmen, again coming under fire at Campomanes Bay on
the island of Negros, and tagged all the way down to the Celebes Sea
by torpedo planes. Then as she raced south through the Molucca Passage,
RAAF Hudson bombers attacked her in error. As part of the Allied naval
force, she acted as an escort for USS Houston as part of a naval force
sent to reinforce Timor. But Timor was beyond help and the convoy had
returned to Port Darwin for refuelling on the morning of February 18th,
the day before the air attack hit on February 19th 1942. Houston and
Peary then left the harbour that evening following refuelling but Peary
picked up a submarine contact outside the harbour and after chasing
it for much of the night was ordered back to Darwin once more to top
up her fuel supply. USS Houston headed west alone, to be sunk on the
last night of February in the Sunda Strait alongside the Australian
cruiser HMAS Perth.
Apparently taken in Darwin Harbour on the morning of 19th Feb 1942
In Darwin Harbour, Peary awaited her fate along with
a number of freighters, a troopship and a tanker. The ex destroyer Preston,
now a seaplane tender, and the Peary fought back with all their might.
The commander of Preston, Etheridge Grant, had got hold of a number
of .30 and .50 cal Brownings and had set them up on the afterdeck as
added AA armament and brought down two dive bombers trying to sink her.
Two other bombers broke through the barrage, one hitting Preston, blowing
the commander overboard, but the ship was one of very few to survive
the onslaught.
But not so the Peary, now zigzagging across the cluttered
harbour, firing away with all her guns. Two bombs caught her, one wrecking
the fantail and tearing off the depth charge racks and propeller guards,
flooding the engine room. The second bomb was an incendiary and it crashed
into the galley setting the ship ablaze. It was just after 1000 and
the ship was fighting for it's life.
The damage control parties and the gunners kept up
the fight for the next three hours as the planes kept coming at them.
But another bomb hit, maiming the brave ship once more. Then a fourth
bomb crashed into the forward magazine and finally a fifth, another
incendiary, striking the after engine room. Dragging her shattered fantail,
the Peary was now dead in the water and at 1300 she broke up and sunk.
As she went down by the stern, the machine guns continued to hammer
away.
In the 1950's one of the 4 inch guns was recovered
from the wreck by Carl Atkinson and restored by the Royal Australian
Navy. It is now displayed as a memorial to the 91 crew who went down
with the ship, the US Navy's greatest loss of life in Australian waters.
Melvin Duke and another survivor, Dallas Widick, attended the unveiling
of the memorial on the 29th January 1992 along with a colour guard from
the USN frigate Robert E Peary.
On the same day Melvin Duke rejoined his ship mates,
another Peary survivor, Ben Greer also returned to Darwin. His return
also made the newspapers.
AMERICAN World War II sailor Ben Greer has returned
to Darwin with one last mission on today's 60th anniversary of the first
bombing of Australia.
The survivor of the USS Peary, which went down with
the loss of 91 crewmates, wants to say a final thank you to the partying
Australian heroes who plucked him from Darwin Harbour.
And discover if that HMAS Southern Cross crew ever received a rough
thank you note scrawled by another of the Peary's 41 rescued crew.
Mr Greer, one of only two Peary crewmen still living,
was won over by the Australians' cheery bravado in holding a birthday
party between the two Japanese bombing raids on Darwin.
"They weren't worried about the bombs. I liked those guys and I
knew I'd like Australians," he said. So much so that he took an
Aussie war bride home.
At a special reunion at Darwin's wharf last night,
Mr Greer was planning to join history enthusiast John Bradford in tracking
down the Southern Cross crew and solve the note mystery.
It was written on butcher paper by James Pike, one of 12 Americans rescued
by the Southern Cross.
"To HMAS Southern Cross from Peary survivors:
We wish to congratulate the officers and men of your ship for their
heroic effort in rescuing us and for the kindness and friendship shown
towards us," the note read. Mr Greer, a
petty officer 3rd class, was on the bridge when the first bomb hit and
was knocked out as he fell two decks below.
He slid from the blazing destroyer as it sank stern
first after being hit by five Japanese bombs.
He recalls seeing his trapped crewmates still firing at Japanese planes
as the ship went down.
He was pulled aboard the Southern Cross an hour later.
"Then they said, 'don't worry, come on down below,
we're having a birthday party'," said Mr Greer, 83.
"They had a cake down there for some guy named
Bluey. They were singing happy birthday while he was blowing out all
the candles."
Information on the
USS Peary memorial in Darwin
Photos of USS
Peary
Reference source: "US Destroyer Operations in WW2" Theodore
Roscoe
