75th anniversary of Japanese attack on Broome commemorated

Off the coast of Broome, when the tide goes out, you can see the bombed out wreckages of 16 Dutch boats.

They were sunk on the morning of the 3rd of March 1942, 75 years ago, when Japanese planes bombed the town of Broome.

The Dutch boats sitting in Roebuck Bay were an easy target for the Japanese fighter pilots.

On board the boats were Dutch military personnel, their wives and children, fleeing from the Japanese advance on Java, then a colony of the Dutch East Indies.

More than 80 of those who died were Dutch.

Eighty-five year old Ellie Koens survived that day.

"It's very difficult to say my emotions on it because there were no emotions I just did as I was told."

Ms Koens was 10 years old at the time, but she remembers that even as fire from the Japanese planes rained down on their boats, she did not want to get in the water.

"I said no mum, I've got to take my shoes off and she said that doesn't matter get in the water and I said no my shoes have got to come off and, of course, my mother was as anxious as could be."

The bombing has been commemorated at a ceremony in Broome for survivors and their descendants.

Sidney Muller is visiting Broome from the UK.

His father, Jo Muller was a 31 year old radio operator on a plane which was shot down north of Broome.

He walked for three days along with one other survivor of the crash, before finding help.

"It would be nice to understand what went through his mind at that time. But it does bring back to you terror of the war and the conditions they must have gone through with those burning wrecks."

Mr Muller says the trip to Broome to see where his father's plane was shot down, has helped him gain a better understanding of who his father was .

"I feel I understand my father more, he is a 31 year old man at the time. To be put through this sort of trial under these sort of conditions, yeah, you sort of can't have anything put admiration"