More bombs away

Yesterday, Friday 19 February, was the 79th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin. The city takes this event seriously, with a military commemoration and a day of ceremony. I popped down from the office to join Ken (and the crowds) around the Cenotaph on the Esplanade.

An F-18 Hornet fighter does a supersonic flypast at 9.58am, the same time that the first raid occurred in 1942. Not exactly a Japanese Zero, but the symbolism is there. The flypast is followed by the military re-enacting the defence with lots of machine guns and army and naval officers running around, and lots of lovely yellow and red puffs of smoke, and generally everyone in military gear having a good time.

The ceremony then becomes more sedate with speeches from local and federal government dignitaries, with a ceremonial changing of the guard at the cenotaph. All branches of the military were represented in the event: army, air force and navy, both genders, plenty of different ethnic backgrounds.

Free iced water in the heat too.

My photos are not great, I'm afraid, but my position was not ideal. I really really wanted to ask these two blokes to move out my way but as you can see, they're wearing ear plugs. So short of pushing them out of the way, which didn't seem in keeping with the dignity of the event (plus, well, they're the military), my view was somewhat obscured.

But I hope you can access the short video (below) that Ken took. Make sure you have your sound on so you can enjoy the machine guns. Oh, and there's definitely not a photo of the F-18: by the time we looked up, it had flown past. (The sound was amazing though.) Maybe next year.