Overview

In the early hours of 8 June 1942, Japanese submarines surfaced off Sydney and Newcastle and opened fire on Australia's east coast. It was the only time enemy warships directly bombarded the Australian mainland during the Second World War. The attack came just days after the dramatic midget submarine raid inside Sydney Harbour, when the Japanese submarine M24 torpedoed the accommodation ship HMAS Kuttabul, killing twenty-one sailors. As the supporting fleet submarines withdrew from Australian waters, two commanders made a final gesture of defiance-surfacing offshore and firing their deck guns at Australia's largest coastal cities. Although the bombardments caused little physical damage, the psychological impact was profound. Shells fell in suburban streets, unexploded ordnance was recovered, and rumours of invasion spread rapidly through the population. Yet within weeks the attacks were largely forgotten, their details obscured by confusion, incomplete records and decades of speculation. Drawing on wartime documents, naval reports, civil defence files and bomb-disposal evidence, Steven Carruthers and Commander Terry Jones reconstruct the bombardments in forensic detail. Their investigation traces where the shells landed, why many failed to explode, and how authorities responded to an attack few had anticipated. Focused, authoritative and deeply researched, A Parting Shot restores these little-known Japanese submarine bombardments to their rightful place in Australia's wartime history.

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9781764220293

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Reviews

""A forensic analysis of the events... This book rectifies that gap, and does it well."" - Jack Aubrey, Australian Naval Institute

Author Information

Steven Carruthers is an Australian maritime historian and former Royal Australian Navy serviceman whose research focuses on the Second World War submarine campaign off Australia's east coast.Drawing on decades of archival research and diving experience, his work combines naval history with maritime archaeology and the first-hand accounts of wartime participants and witnesses. His research has helped illuminate the little-known Japanese submarine attacks against Australia in 1942, including the shelling of Sydney and Newcastle.Carruthers writes from Warilla, New South Wales, and publishes under the Bluewater Press imprint. Terry Jones joined the Royal Australian Navy at the age of thirteen and served for forty years, retiring in 1988 with the rank of Commander. A specialist Clearance Diver and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) officer, he commanded two ships, served as Executive Officer of five others, and held postings in the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Singapore.Jones saw active service during the Indonesian Confrontation and later served twice as Officer-in-Charge of the Navy's Bomb and Mine Disposal School and as head of the RAN Clearance Diving School. His extensive experience with naval ordnance and underwater operations provided the technical foundation for the ordnance and bomb-disposal analysis presented in A Parting Shot.

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