Top seceret RAAF airbase nearly found by Japanese patrol in Oz

[Liberator]

The once highly secret Truscott air base in Western Australia is remembered for Anzac Day - story in SMH - http://www.smh.com.au/national/deep-nor ... 2iar9.html ... who knew that the Japanese in WW2 landed in Australia and tried to find this airbase for 10days?

[The Inspector]

Amazing how things like this continue to literally 'come out of the woodwork'. I never knew that the Japanese had actually landed troops on Australia. A very interesting place lost in time and pretty much also frozen in the late 40's-thanks for posting the video and article.

[Rossco]

More stories here...
http://www.ozatwar.com/japsland/japsland.htm

[Dave Homewood]

Back in the 1990's The Bush Tucker Man series episode "Kimberley" was devoted to this Japanese landing, so it's not exactly a newly discovered story.

[JohnB]

Speaking of untold stories of the Pacific War, I was shocked learning the story of the Japanese pilot forced down on an out island following the Pearl Harbor attack.
Aided by a sympathetic Japanese farm worker.

That story didn't get a lot of retelling in the history books. I'd thought FDR would have used it to justify his internment of the Japanese (a particularly shameful part of our history..if somewhat understandable at the time).

[leo]

Gordon Prange's book "Dec. 7, 1941" devotes some space with a good, complete account of that pilot. both the former and "At Dawn We Slept" are very well written well researched and detailed accounts (IMHO) of the attack, aftermath and events leading up to it.

[Chris Brame]

That story didn't get a lot of retelling in the history books.

It was detailed in Walter Lord's Day of Infamy back in 1957. Too bad they didn't manage to finish off the pilot before he torched his Zero; we would have had an intact example to study six months earlier.