One of the last surviving World War II veterans to witness the Darwin bombings says the diggers involved never got the recognition they deserved.
Tasmanian Brian Winspear can still picture the sun glinting off the bombs like confetti as hell rained down on the city 75 years ago.
Sirens blared as the then 21-year-old air gunner bolted for the trenches close to the RAAF hangar when the first of 188 enemy aircraft appeared on the horizon.
Japan's deadly campaign brought a distant war to home soil, and the Northern Territory had become the frontline.
The 96-year-old digger has travelled thousands of kilometres back to ground zero to mark Sunday's anniversary of the NT's darkest hour.
It was the largest and most destructive single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia and led to the worst death toll from any event in the nation's history.
The assault was more savage than Pearl Harbor; more bombs fell on Darwin, more civilians were killed, and more ships were sunk.
Yet three quarters of a century on, Mr Winspear says the story has remained in the shadows.
Politicians down south fell silent and censorship was rife in fear of sparking panic in the nation's population.
"At the time there was no publicity whatsoever, the government was so ashamed of being caught with their pants down with no defence," he said in Darwin on Friday.
"It's an insult to the politicians of the day that the Japs could come knocking at the door... it shouldn't have happened."
Mr Winspear was holding the line against formidable Japanese forces in Indonesia when he was evacuated to Darwin, arriving just two hours before the raids began.
Once in the trenches he put a tin helmet on and a cork between his teeth "to stop concussion" as planes flew overhead.
From this terrifyingly close vantage point, Mr Winspear said he could see the Japanese pilots grinning from the cockpit.
"It was bloody hell," he said.
"As we looked up the sun glinted on the bombs... it was just like confetti."
Mr Winspear is among 29 diggers who have made the pilgrimage back to Darwin from across the country to make sure the true cost of war is never downplayed again.
"When my generation goes... you can bet your yellow socks that in another five or ten years time someone around a table will say 'let's have another war'," Mr Windspear said.
"For goodness sake, don't forget to remember."
