Aftermath
Following the attack, an RAAF officer—Pilot Officer Frank Russell, who had been on one of the flying boats during the raid—wrote of
| “ | ... a scene of ghastly devastation! Our flying boats all over the place were sending up huge clouds of black smoke. Burning petrol in sinister patches floated all over the sea... All around us there fell a ceaseless stream of tracer bullets. Several of the Dutch Dorniers had been full of women and kids, waiting to take off to ... safety. | ” |
Charlie D'Antoine—an Aboriginal flying boat refueller—helped two passengers from the planes to reach the shore, swimming through burning fuel and wreckage. D'Antoine later received a bravery award from the Dutch government and was invited to attend a royal reception in the Netherlands.
At least one U.S. serviceman—Sgt Melvin Donoho—managed to swim about 16 km (9.9 mi) from the crashed B-24 to shore, a journey which took him more than 36 hours. Some accounts say that a Sgt Willard J. Beatty also made it ashore but died soon afterwards; other sources suggest that this was a false report, emanating from one newspaper article.
Japanese aircraft later made several smaller attacks on the Broome area. On 20 March, Mitsubishi G4M2 "Betty" medium bombers made a high altitude attack on the airfield. One civilian was killed and there was some crater damage. The last attack was in August 1943.
Read more about this topic: Attack On Broome
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“The aftermath of joy is not usually more joy.”
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