Overview

On the night of 31 May 1942, three Japanese midget submarines slipped through the defences of Sydney Harbour and launched a daring attack on Allied warships anchored inside the harbour. The raid shocked Australia and revealed that the Pacific War had reached the nation's doorstep. Japanese Submarine Raiders recounts the dramatic and little-known submarine campaign waged by Japan against Australia during the Second World War. In early 1942, Japanese submarines appeared along Australia's east coast, attacking merchant ships, shelling Australian cities, and probing coastal defences. The Sydney Harbour attack formed part of a wider submarine offensive directed against Australia's shipping and major ports. Drawing on wartime records, naval reports, survivor accounts, and more than four decades of historical research, Steven Carruthers reconstructs both the Sydney Harbour attack and the broader submarine operations conducted along Australia's coastline. The book examines the strategy behind Japan's submarine raids and the challenges faced by Australian naval authorities tasked with defending the nation's largest ports. This revised edition also explores the hidden intelligence dimension of the campaign. Allied commanders relied on fragmentary signals intelligence while strict wartime censorship limited what governments and the public knew about Japanese submarine activity in Australian waters. These secret aspects of the war shaped both wartime decision-making and the historical record that followed. Originally published as Australia Under Siege in 1982 and later revised as Japanese Submarine Raiders 1942, this new edition incorporates updated research and analysis to present a comprehensive account of Japan's submarine war at Australia's doorstep. Part naval history and part investigative reconstruction, Japanese Submarine Raiders illuminates a dramatic chapter of Australia's wartime experience and the submarine campaign that brought the war to its eastern shores.

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9781764220255

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Reviews

""An extensive bibliography attests to the research the author undertook."" - Navy News, reviewing the original edition (Australia Under Siege, 1982)

Author Information

Steven Carruthers is an Australian naval historian and former Royal Australian Navy serviceman. For more than four decades he has researched the Japanese submarine campaign against Australia during the Second World War, with particular focus on the 1942 attack on Sydney Harbour and the wider East Coast sea war. His work draws on archival research, wartime records, and collaboration with maritime archaeologists and divers involved in the discovery and documentation of Japanese midget submarine M24. Carruthers is the author of several books on Australia's wartime maritime history and continues to write and lecture on the subject.

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