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The day WWII came to Broome

As a bright, sunny dawn broke over Broome's Roebuck Bay on March 3, 1942, the tiny pearling harbour was already abuzz with activity.

Fifteen Dutch, Australian and US flying boats loaded with refugees and servicemen who had fled the Japanese advance in the Dutch East Indies bobbed in the calm waters, awaiting their turn to refuel and take off again.

But at 9.30am, all hell broke loose. In the bloodiest wartime event in WA history, nine Japanese Zero fighters swooped repeatedly over the bay and local airstrip, killing more than 80 people and destroying 22 Dutch and Allied aircraft.

Two weeks earlier, the Allied and Dutch commands had ordered the emergency evacuation of military aircraft, personnel and families from the East Indies as Japan advanced.

Broome, a sleepy outpost 900km from Java, seemed a safe and logical choice for a fuel stop and a steady stream of planes loaded with refugees was using it.

As the Japanese unleashed 20 minutes of rapid gunfire on the flying boats, the turquoise waters became awash with blood and blazed with spilt oil as the planes and the passengers trapped inside - mostly women and children - were incinerated.

As bullets tore into the aircraft, fuel tanks in the wings exploded and the planes ignited and sank as thick black smoke obliterated the bay.

Capt. Lester Brain, of Qantas, saw the horrific events unfold.

"Shouts and screams can be heard coming across the water from the burning boats . . . It appears when the Japanese have finished there will be nothing left afloat to rescue the survivors," he wrote in his diary.

As he and other witnesses scrambled to help the wounded, the Japanese headed for the town's airstrip, where eight bombers were stranded on the tarmac.

A US Liberator bomber took off but was shot down, crashing off Cable Beach and killing all but two of the 33 servicemen aboard.

In a simultaneous attack on Wyndham, a plane was set alight and a ship strafed by eight Zeros.

Satisfied, the Japanese left Broome and flew north, losing another plane, which ditched into the ocean.

Aviation historian Merv Prime, author of WA's Pearl Harbour: the Japanese raid on Broome, said the Japanese achieved results they could scarcely have dreamt of.

In exchange for two single- engine aircraft and a pilot, they destroyed 22 big military aircraft and claimed many servicemen's lives.

"Locals had no fighter aircraft to protect them - the equivalent of today's reservists, the Broome Volunteer Defence Corps, basically had 303 rifles to fire at the Japanese Zeros," Prime said.

Those on the ground raced to save as many lives as they could and tales of heroism abounded as people in dinghies plucked survivors from the water.

Charles D'Antoine, an Aboriginal from One Arm Point, was commended by the Royal Netherlands Air Force for his rescue of a woman and her child even though he was terrified of sharks.

Survivor Catharina Komen, then nine, wrote of how her father was shot dead in front of her before she was thrown into the burning water. Hardly able to swim, a wounded man helped her before he died and slipped under the waves.

Just 30 bodies were recovered or were washed up.

Those trapped in the wrecks were never seen again.

Immediately after the attack, about 90 per cent of Broome's remaining population fled south but floods forced them to return.

After the Japanese raids, evacuation efforts were moved to Port Hedland and Broome was left to recover. It would be attacked three more times by the Japanese but just one more man died.

With no refugee manifests, it is impossible to know how many people died that day but their legacy includes the wrecked Catalinas that still poke from the seabed about 1km offshore at low tides.

In Broome this morning, the Australian, US and Dutch Governments and Broome Returned and Services League sub-branch will pay tribute to those who died with a flyover and service in Bedford Park overlooking Roebuck Bay.