Attack on Broome The town of Broome , Western Australia was attacked by Japanese fighter planes on 3 March 1942 , during World War II . At least 88 people were killed . Although Broome was a small pearling port at the time , it was also a refuelling point for aircraft , on the route between the Netherlands East Indies and major Australian cities . As a result , Broome was on a line of flight for Dutch and other refugees , following the Japanese invasion of Java , and had become a significant Allied military base . During a two - week period in February – March 1942 , more than a thousand refugees from the Dutch East Indies — many of them in flying boat s , which often served as airliners at the time – passed through Broome . The number of refugees has previously been given as 8000 , but new research by Dr Tom Lewis contends that this figure is massively overstated . The figure was first quoted in the relevant Australian Official War History and has been reproduced in many publications since . The actual number of aerial evacuees passing through Broome at this time is estimated to have been only 1 , 350 . Most of these were military personnel . There were approximately just 250 Dutch civilian refugees , most of whom were family members of Dutch aircrews . The attack . Lt Zenjiro Miyano — the commander of " Dai 3 Kohkuu Sentai " ( 3rd Air Group ) of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service — led nine Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter s and a Mitsubishi C5M2 reconnaissance plane from their base at Kupang , Timor in the attack , on the morning of 3 March . From about 09 : 20 , the Zeros made strafing attacks on the flying boat anchorage at Roebuck Bay and the Royal Australian Air Force ( RAAF ) base at Broome Airfield . No bombs were dropped , although some were reported , perhaps a result of witnesses seeing the Zero pilots releasing their drop tanks . The raid lasted an hour . The Japanese fighters destroyed at least 22 Allied aircraft . These included an airborne United States Army Air Forces ( USAAF ) B - 24A Liberator , full of wounded personnel — more than 30 died when it crashed in the sea , about off Broome . The Allies also lost 15 flying boats at anchorage ; many Dutch refugees were on board and the exact number and identities of those killed is unknown . At the airfield , the Japanese fighters destroyed two B - 17E Flying Fortress es and a B - 24 belonging to the USAAF , two Lockheed Hudson s belonging to the RAAF and a Lockheed Lodestar belonging to the Royal Netherlands East Indies Air Force ( ML - KNIL ) . The aircraft destroyed included : eight Catalinas belonging to the Royal Netherlands Navy Air Service ( MLD ) , United States Navy and the Royal Air Force ; two Short Empire s belonging to the RAAF and QANTAS , and five Dornier Do 24 s belonging to the MLD . A KLM Douglas DC - 3 airliner — PK - AFV ( carrying refugees from Bandung ) — was also shot down , north of Broome , with the loss of four lives and diamonds worth £ 150 , 000 - 300 , 000 ( now approximately A $ 20 - 40 million ) . There were no Allied fighter planes based in Broome at the time . The Zeroes encountered some light arms fire from the ground . One Zero pilot — Warrant Officer Osamu Kudō — was killed by ground fire from a Dutch ML - KNIL pilot , First Lieutenant Gus Winckel , using a 7 . 9mm machine gun he had removed from his Lodestar . Winckel balanced the weapon on his shoulder , and sustained burns to his left forearm , when it touched the barrel of the gun after firing . Another Zero ran out of fuel and ditched while returning to his base , although the pilot survived . In 2010 , new research argued instead that Kudo ’ s Zero was shot down by the tail guns in the B - 24A " Arabian Nights " , which itself was downed by Kudo ’ s attack with the loss of 19 of the 20 American military personnel on board . 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 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 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 G4M 2 " Betty " medium bomber s 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 . Postscript . The Australian journalist , broadcaster and author Coralie Clarke Rees ( 1908 - 1972 ) published a less prosaic , and highly personal account of the Broome air raid in her 1946 elegy to her dead airman brother , " Silent His Wings " : < poem > You in a tiny hand - picked bunch of sappers chosen to gelignite Broome in the teeth of the down - swooping Jap , saw stately Dutch flying - boats , lovely Dutch women , riddled with bullets , blasted , floating , American Liberators and quaking Malays spine - shattered by the hail of yellow bombs . You smelt and tasted death and the tang of it never left your tongue . < / poem >