War tale needs love angle

BRISBANE -- Few Canadians may know it, but Australia has its own Pearl Harbour, even if we don't have a Ben Affleck or an Alec Baldwin to play the leading roles.

On the morning of Feb. 19, 1942, more bombs were dropped on the port city of Darwin than fell on the Hawaiian naval base 10 weeks earlier.

Nearly 200 Japanese pilots at the centre of the first attack knew their target. With around 15,000 allied soldiers present, many of them Americans, Darwin, in the far north, was a strategic location for the war's Pacific theatre.

Eight ships were sunk, including the United States Navy destroyer USS Peary. While no definitive account of casualties is available, it is generally accepted that between 250 and 300 people died.

This extraordinary historical event wallows in the deeper recesses of Australia's consciousness largely because of the power of wartime censorship, which ensured it was effectively a military secret for many years.

Yet, this week, it roused itself from obscurity and stirred once again into life as federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott declared the bombing should become "a day of national significance.''

"The bombing of Darwin was the first time that Australia was attacked by enemy forces,'' Abbott said of the event, which was far from an isolated one-off.

Bombing raids by Japanese forces over Darwin continued for many months after February 1942 and extended to other northern Australian cities, including Broome, Cairns and Townsville.

"To recognize the significance of this event... (the Opposition) is calling for the 19th of February to be declared as Bombing of Darwin Day," Abbott said.

And therein lies our problem.

It's a universally accepted truth that ever since an ancient forefather stepped back into the cave after hurling rocks at the neighbours, we've all been clamouring: "Tell us a war story!''

That we refer to various military fronts as "theatres'' is no coincidence. From Shakespeare's Richard III to Full Metal Jacket, war only needs a deft director's hand to light up box offices like an artillery barrage.

Pearl Harbour, The Blitz, even the Tet Offensive are worthy titles of military conflict which could leap effortlessly from military briefing rooms onto celluloid.

But "The Bombing of Darwin'' is not a spiel to catch a Spielberg's eye or prompt a Coppola to begin the casting call.

It is true Baz Luhrmann made a worthy attempt to dramatize the event in his 2008 epic Australia, but, sadly, that movie appears to have joined Kevin Costner's Waterworld in the "we've-spent-$200-million-on-this-what-could-possibly-go-wrong?'' section of your local DVD store.

And so the unquestionably dramatic event, much like the entire Korean War if we ignore M.A.S.H., will continue to be a "back-burner'' project in Hollywood terms.

Canada will no doubt empathize, for it, too, has experienced wartime adventure that failed to make it as even a draft script for a telemovie.

It is, by way of example, a well known fact that a Japanese submarine unsuccessfully attacked Vancouver Island in June 1942.

But I'm sure we'd all agree The Failed Shelling of the Estevan Point Lighthouse could not hope to compete with, say, The Eagle Has Landed.

German U-boats also attacked ships at Bell Island, Newfoundland, but Ore Carrier Assault doesn't have the same depth-charging appeal as The Enemy Below.

It's not a matter of casualties. Military conflicts, which are cost-effective in terms of loss of life, can easily grab the public's imagination. Saving Private Ryan cost only a handful of lives, including that of Tom Hanks and Adam Goldberg, and yet more than a decade after screening still makes several million dollars a year on the DVD market.

The Second World War is still graphically alive in millions of minds throughout the western world, not because of the dogged determination of several million allied soldiers, but because Steve McQueen jumped a Triumph Trophy motorcycle out of a German PoW camp in The Great Escape.

Gregory Peck did his bit with Twelve O'Clock High, Montgomery Clift was invaluable in From Here to Eternity and Brad Pitt in more recent years has helped enormously with Inglourious Basterds.

And no one would seriously dispute that Vivien Leigh in an emerald-green dress did more for the enduring memory of the American Civil War than the combined heroics of Robert E Lee, Ulysses S. Grant and the estimated 8,000 soldiers residing beneath the fields of Gettysburg.

Abbott is to be congratulated for his admirable effort to keep alive the memory of several hundred mainly young men who died doing their duty in a remote corner of the globe on Feb. 19, 1942.

But unless the events are laid out graphically in a blockbuster that errs dramatically from actual events, includes a love interest and enjoys saturation media coverage on premiere night, it won't have a hope of embedding itself in the public mind.

We're going to have to come up with a better pitch than The Bombing Of Darwin or the memory of this dramatic air attack will soon be Gone With The Wind.

Michael Madigan is the Winnipeg Free Press Australian correspondent. He writes mostly about politics for the Brisbane-based Courier Mail.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 30, 2011 A15