The story thus far... At the end of February and early March 1942, the expanded Empire of Japan was consolidating its grip on South-East Asia. Senior Japanese commanders were already troubled by the possibility that Australia would become a springboard for counterattacks on their new empire, so they ordered a number of air-raids against towns in northern Australia- focusing largely upon denying military assets to the routed Allies. Which is why Lt Zenjiro Miyano brought a force of nine A6M2 “Zeros” and a “Babs” observation plane from Kupiang in Timor to hit the airfield at the tiny coastal port of Broome in north-western Australia on the morning of March 3rd. The Japanese military had checked out Broome and its airfield the day before with a Kawanishi H6K “Mavis” flying boat, but what they hadn’t figured on was Broome suddenly becoming a parking lot for Allied flying boats escaping the Dutch East Indies that evening. When Miyano’s small force arrived they were stunned to find a veritable who’s-who of flying boats refuelling in Broome’s pearling harbour. Dorniers. Catalinas. Short C-Class. 15 flying boats in all! Miyano and two wingmen stayed up on top to watch for Allied fighters while the rest of the flight set to work destroying every aircraft in the area, with considerable loss of life to crews and passengers. There were no Allied fighters. There was also no anti-aircraft defense other than one very, very angry Dutchman packing a blisteringly-hot heavy machine gun... but that’s probably another upload... The background scene is based upon a photograph taken by the crew of the “Babs” aircraft during the attack. For folk who like the details- the view of Roebuck Bay looking north across the peninsula toward Cable Beach is a heavily retouched “Google Maps” image applied to a “plane” along with a bump map and a transparency map. The palls of smoke from the burning aircraft are displacement materials applied to “metablob” objects.