The Darwin Military Museum

The second museum we visited in Darwin was the Military Museum. This has displays on a range of things relating to the military history of the area, but focuses primarily on WWII and specifically on the bombing of 19th February 1942, and the subsequent conversion of that part of the Northern Territory to a massive armed camp. The displays, interactive and otherwise, on the bombing are outstanding, and serve as a great starting point of anyone wishing to explore relevant locations around the city and territory. I'll be doing another post on a couple of locations related to the bombing.

In the grounds of the museum are a few vehicles and weapns. They aren't necessarily in a brilliant state of repair, and are possibly a bit random, but I took a few pictures.

For Airfix fans, here's your Buffalo.

Ship-mounted AA guns.

And the mighty Bofors.

Between two of the buildings is a small Japanese garden. I couldn't find any signage covering its origin, but there were three posts set up in it with what seemed to be memorials to Japanese servicemen.

The gong is unusual, but evocative.

The museum's outbuildings have displays covering various themes. In one covering WWII there was this gorgeous diorama of the Japanese task-force which launched the February 19th attack.

The museum is built around the location of two 9" gun emplacements. One was just down the road, and was too far to walk to (it was a very hot day and I was tired), whilst the other is in the grounds of the museum. It has a display inside it covering Australia's role in Vietnam, but has also been fitted out with a dummy gun to give a feel for how it would have looked.

There was a sign on the steps to the emplacement warning people that a python had been spotted somewhere in its vicinity earlier that day; welcome to tropical Australia.

One high point of the visit was bumping into an elderly gentleman who was chatting about a machine-gun in one of the cases. It turned out that his father was an observer in a Bristol Fighter during WW1. I have never really met anyone with that direct an association with my favourite era of air combat, and we spent a little time chatting about his father's experiences and the weaponry of the planes.

Anyway, if only for the displays on the Bombing of Darwin, this museum is well worth a visit.