After the surprise attack on Darwin by Japanese planes on 19 february, 1942, the war cabinet made every affort to suppress the facts and the propaganda released at the time eventually became accepted as a part of history. In reality, reaction to the raid was a combination of pnic, cowardice and chaos on an unprecedented scale. Most of the RAAF ran off into the bush and at least one man didn't stop until he reached Melbourne. After the bombing, the city was systematically looted by the very military forces that were supposed to be protecting it.
Timothy Hall was the first writer to gain access to all the contemporary official reports and has written a fascinating, authoritarive account of what Sir Paul Hasuck later described as "a day of national shame".