Description

In the early hours of 8 June 1942, Japanese submarines surfaced off Sydney and Newcastle and opened fire on Australia's east coast. It was the only time enemy warships directly bombarded the Australian mainland during the Second World War.

The attack came just days after the dramatic midget submarine raid inside Sydney Harbour, when the Japanese submarine M24 torpedoed the accommodation ship HMAS Kuttabul, killing twenty-one sailors. As the supporting fleet submarines withdrew from Australian waters, two commanders made a final gesture of defiance-surfacing offshore and firing their deck guns at Australia's largest coastal cities.

Although the bombardments caused little physical damage, the psychological impact was profound. Shells fell in suburban streets, unexploded ordnance was recovered, and rumours of invasion spread rapidly through the population. Yet within weeks the attacks were largely forgotten, their details obscured by confusion, incomplete records and decades of speculation.

Drawing on wartime documents, naval reports, civil defence files and bomb-disposal evidence, Steven Carruthers and Commander Terry Jones reconstruct the bombardments in forensic detail. Their investigation traces where the shells landed, why many failed to explode, and how authorities responded to an attack few had anticipated.

Focused, authoritative and deeply researched, A Parting Shot restores these little-known Japanese submarine bombardments to their rightful place in Australia's wartime history.