Getting back to Darwin

 


Zebra Rock on the way to Litchfield National Park



















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It amazed me that I was sitting in front of it

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  The Plane That Started It All By Makayla Lockwood   During this trip, one moment where I felt like I pieced together a major part of the story in relation to the Bombing of Darwin was whilst we were at the Darwin Aviation Museum. Hajime Toyoshima was the man who led the bombing squadron against Darwin on the fateful 19 th February 1942. He was also the man who led the raid on Perl Harbour less than a year before. His plane caught my attention, because without him and his plane leading the squadrons of Japanese pilots, there wouldn’t have been an attack that day. It hit me: this was one of the planes that struck fear in the citizens of Darwin. You would have heard it in the skies. Seen it fly overhead. It was used as a weapon against Australia. And now it sat here, just a pile of scrap metal. It crashed somewhere on Melville Island, on Australian soil. Toyoshima was the first Japanese prisoner of war in Australia and died during an attempt to escape his POW camp in NSW. I sat
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The 2021 Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize Award Ceremony

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  The 2021 Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize awardees with The Honourable Steven Marshall MP Premier of South Australia at the award ceremony on 3 September, 2021. The newly selected 2021 Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize awardees were presented with their certificates and medallions by the Premier at a special award ceremony in the Drill Hall, Anzac House on 3 September, 2021. It was a great occasion for the 2021 awardees to meet the Premier and to celebrate their new status as recipients of a Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize. These 20 students join 143 other young South Australians who have been awarded a Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize since the inception of the prize in 2007. As well as being addressed by the Premier, the ceremony was also addressed by Ms Cheryl Cates, RSL SA President and five of the 2020  Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize awardees. The 2020  Premier's Anzac Spirit School Prize awardees played an important part in the ceremony
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Robert Simons by Vinka Lakic

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  The son of Frederick Quartermaine Simons and Mabel Bessie Simons, Robert Frederick Simons was born on 24 September 1921, in his hometown of Hindmarsh, in the City of Charles Sturt, South Australia. Robert was one of four children, and the brother of Rhonda, Elizabeth and Reginald Leslie Simons. At nineteen years of age, Simons enlisted to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) on 18 March 1940. He was based at Darwin’s RAAF SHQ (Station Headquarters), and was assigned the service number, 26040. Robert was appointed the position of guard. Prior to the Second World War, Darwin’s No. 12 Squadron, which was equipped with Avro Anson and Wirraway aircrafts, and flew convoy escorts and flew routine patrols, had no guards. With the donation of .50 calibre machine guns provided by the Americans, the defence of RAAF Station Darwin was exclusively implemented by RAAF Guards, not the Australian Army; and so on 10 February 1942, over one-hundred guards arrived at RAAF Station Darwin – inclusive
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