Fight to the end, troops told in Darwin invasion scare
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday September 25, 2009
THE family of a former army officer has produced a set of orders issued to him in 1942 saying the Japanese were about to invade and ordering his unit to defend Darwin and to fight "to the very end".The medical student-turned-army captain, William Rait, is now 100 and lives in a Melbourne nursing home.He was the officer in command of D Company of 43 Battalion when the orders were issued to him on March 27, 1942."It is expected that the enemy will attempt to land in the Darwin area in the next few days," the orders said.The battalion was told to take up defensive positions along the Darwin Road with the support of an American artillery unit."THE AREA WILL BE HELD TO THE VERY END," the orders stressed The Australians were told to mount attacks from their positions.When the threat of invasion receded, Captain Rait was sent to finish his medical training and became a doctor in the air force.He later served in Japan, Korea and in the Malayan emergency before becoming a GP in Geelong.Dr Rait kept the typed orders folded in a desk drawer for almost 70 years.His wife, Lila, told the Herald that when he was given the written orders, on a Friday, he was also given verbal instructions to €śexpect Japanese troops by Monday morning€ť.Dr Rait told her his company was a militia unit with only limited training and little ammunition. He also told his family that his troops captured a Japanese man in the bush near Darwin and sent him to a jail in Adelaide River. The man said he was a fisherman.While the fear of invasion was widespread after the air raids on Darwin in February 1942, historians now say the Japanese had no plan to invade Australia and lacked the resources to do so.But clearly someone in Australia's military HQ thought they were coming and Captain Rait and his men thought they were in for the fight of their lives.The document will be sold in Melbourne on Sunday by the auction house Bonhams & Goodman. The company's head of collectables, Giles Moon, said it demonstrated the Curtin government feared invasion was imminent.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
