The bombing of Darwin and Australia’s air defence scandal
Led by the best strategist ever to command an Australian military service, Air Vice Marshal Richard Williams, the Royal Australian Air Force spent the late 1930s preparing for the war to come.
Williams developed detailed plans to counter the likely Japanese threat, but his strategic vision brought him into conflict with politicians who preferred to follow British advice on how the RAAF should be organised. Marginalising Williams, they aligned Australian air policy and aircraft production with British priorities. Wounded Eagle reveals this neglected story in a compelling account of political intrigue, strategic failure and missed opportunity.
Publisher: New Holland, 2009
Press Coverage
On the seventieth anniversary of the bombing of Darwin, journalist Mike Sweet drew extensively on Wounded Eagle in this feature published by the Sydney Morning Herald.