# Eight Metres: The Story of Darwin Harbour Source page: https://darwinharbour.com/ Live tide clock: https://darwinharbour.com/tides/ Contact: ceo@dottheworld.com Last updated: 2026-10-03 ## I · Country The Larrakia people lived around the harbour and the greater Darwin region, moving through it by canoe to fish and trade. Their trading routes reached Southeast Asia, and songlines tied the coast to country far inland. ## II · A name from a ship Lieutenant John Lort Stokes named it after Charles Darwin, his old shipmate from the Beagle's earlier voyage around the world. Darwin himself never came here. The name arrived on a chart long before any town did. - On 9 September 1839, HMS Beagle sailed into the harbour. ## III · A town on the edge - Thirty years later, the British came back to stay. - Keep scrolling: the story moves sideways here, the way the town grew along the harbour. - 1869 Palmerston On 5 February 1869 surveyor George Goyder landed 135 men and women at Port Darwin and laid out a town called Palmerston. - 1872 The wire to the world An undersea cable from Java came ashore here in November 1871. A year later the 3,200-kilometre Overland Telegraph Line reached Port Augusta, and Australia was wired to the world. - 1911 Palmerston becomes Darwin In 1911 the town took the harbour's name, and the Northern Territory passed from South Australia to the Commonwealth. ## IV · Thursday 19 February 1942 - Four Japanese aircraft carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū and Sōryū, launch their aircraft. The last are airborne by 8:45 am. - 188 aircraft in formation: level bombers, dive bombers and a fighter escort. - Over the coast, the strike force turns to attack from the south. - 9:58 am. Sixty-five Allied warships and merchant ships are in the harbour. Bombs fall on the wharf and the ships at anchor. - Then the town, the RAAF base and the civil aerodrome. The bombers turn for home at about 10:10. ## The toll of 19 February 1942 Two raids struck that day, by 242 aircraft in all. It was the first and largest of about a hundred air attacks on northern Australia that ran until November 1943. - The harbour was full of ships. Within minutes, it was full of smoke. - 242 aircraft in two raids - ≈250 people killed, by the official estimate - 25 ships damaged ## Below the surface - USS Peary: US Navy destroyer · 88 of her crew were lost - MV Neptuna: cargo ship · exploded at Stokes Hill Wharf; 45 killed - USAT Meigs: US Army transport · one of 66 aboard killed - SS Zealandia: troopship · her wreck lies 19 m down - SS Mauna Loa: cargo ship · two bombs through an open hatch - MV British Motorist: oil tanker · two of 61 crew killed - HMAS Mavie: wooden patrol lugger, built 1903 · all four crew survived - Kelat: an 1881 iron sailing ship, by 1942 a coal hulk · machine-gunned in the raid, she sank at her mooring days later - Karalee: a 31-metre harbour lighter · lost after the raid; her wreck has never been found ## V · Christmas Eve 1974 - 66 lives lost, 45 on land and 21 at sea - 70%+ of Darwin's buildings destroyed, including 80% of houses - 35,362 people evacuated in six days, most of them by air ## After Tracy About 47,000 people lived in Darwin that night. By New Year most of them had been flown or driven out of a city that was mostly gone. The Darwin you see today is the city they came back and rebuilt. - Around 3:30 on Christmas morning, the eye crossed the coast near Fannie Bay. ## VI · The eight-metre breath - 7.8 m largest range ever recorded here - 5.5 m average spring tide - 1.9 m average neap tide ## VII · Tonight on the harbour The harbour still breathes twice a day, as it did for the Larrakia, for Stokes, and on the morning of the raid. Watch it from the shore: saltwater crocodiles live here all year, and stingers are common from about October to May. Not for swimming. Not for navigation. For boating, use the Bureau of Meteorology tide tables . - The sun sets over the water. ## - Twice a day the harbour forgets, and remembers. ## Sources - Wikipedia: Darwin Harbour; History of Darwin; Bombing of Darwin; USS Peary; Kelat (ship); HMAS Mavie; Cyclone Tracy - Libraries & Archives NT; Australian War Memorial; State Library Victoria; Naval Historical Society of Australia - Tides: TICON-4 harmonic constants (Hart-Davis, Dettmering and Seitz 2025, CC BY 4.0) via the Neaps tide database. Not for navigation.