Before the bombing of Darwin, a Missionary of the Sacred Heart priest, Ed Bennett, saw the approaching Japanese bombers, and urged the resident coastwatcher, John Gribble, to send a warning to Darwin, but Gribble refused. He said it would have to be sent in code, and he did not have the relevant code books. The first wave of 188 Japanese planes was also spotted by another missionary on the island, Father John McGrath, who sent a message on the radio saying "An unusually large air formation bearing down on us from the northwest". However, ten US P-40E Kittyhawk fighters were returning to Darwin after aborting a mission to Timor due to bad weather, and the Australian duty officer assumed this was the same formation, and the warning was not acted upon. In film Bathurst Island was depicted as Mission Island in the 2008 Baz Luhrmann film Australia. In the film, Japanese infantrymen land on the island; however, the presence of Japanese troops on the island is entirely fictional, as no such landing by the Japanese was made during World War II. Notable people Olive May Pearce Notes and references Further reading Bathurst island (Encyclopædia Britannica) Bathurst Island (Walkabout) External links Tiwi Land Council Tiwi Islands Australian Aboriginal freehold title