In World War II, Darwin had received a heavier air raid than Pearl Harbor. Broome, Katherine and Cairns had also been bombed. Japanese submarines were attacking Sydney, and Spitfires and Zeroes were fighting it out above Australia's northern coasts and towns. The only American science fiction that arrived in Australia were in British editions. The only authentic American SF magazines to reach Australia in this period arrived as ballast in ships. Imported science fiction was an unthinkable luxury in Australia under these circumstances, yet thanks to government inertia the embargo was not lifted until thirteen years after the war ended, in 1958. The unrestricted return of non-Australian science fiction marked an end to one period of growth in Australian homegrown science fiction writing and publication.