Background
Frederick Chalmers, son of Robert Hamilton Chalmers and Emily Louisa (Walter) Chalmers, was born in Brighton, Tasmania, on 4 January 1881, into a farming family.
Frederick Chalmers, son of Robert Hamilton Chalmers and Emily Louisa (Walter) Chalmers, was born in Brighton, Tasmania, on 4 January 1881, into a farming family.
His murder by Japanese soldiers on Nauru in 1943 was the focus of a war crimes trial following World World War World War II At age 18 he enlisted in the army and served in South Africa during the Boer War, obtaining the rank of Lieutenant in 1901. After demobilization he returned to Tasmania, where he lived until 1907. He then joined the railway company of the State of Victoria, and worked as a salesman at Moe.
Married to Mary Cecilia Bennett in 1910, he became a widower in 1914, and in April of the same year he re-enlisted in the Army.
Joining the Australian Imperial Force as an enlisted man, he was promoted to lieutenant a month later. During the First World War he served in Egypt, Gallipoli, Belgium, and France.
He was promoted to captain in August 1915. After officers" training at the military school of Aldershot in England late in 1916 he was promoted to Major.
He was given command of a battalion in October 1917, became a lieutenant colonel in January 1918, and was named Companion of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George in 1919.
He headed an association of veterans and was involved in the Boy Scouts. In 1938, Chalmers was selected from among 70 candidates to succeed Roman Catholic Garsia as head of the administration of Nauru, a Pacific island supervised by Australia under League of Nations mandate. lieutenant had over 3,500 inhabitants, and was of strategic importance to the Commonwealth owing to its very large deposits of phosphate (which was used in fertilizer, making it critical to Australia and New Zealand"s agriculture-based economies).
His affable manner made him a popular figure on Nauru.
He introduced Berkshire pigs to the island to improve the local livestock, and also gambusia fish to combat the proliferation of mosquitoes. On 27 December 1940, after the outbreak of the Second World War, an auxiliary cruiser of the Kriegsmarine, the Komet, appeared off Nauru"s shore.
After warning the residents via signals, the German commerce raider began shelling the island"s mining facilities, fuel storage tanks, and cantilevered loading jetties, causing tremendous damage. An infuriated Chalmers reportedly stomped along the waterfront hurling insults at the enemy ship.
A year later, after Japan entered the war, the decision was made to evacuate the island.
While most Westerners and foreign workers were taken off in February 1942, Chalmers (along with four other Australians) chose to remain behind, feeling it was his duty to look after the Nauruans if the Japanese invaded. When Japanese occupation forces duly landed the following August, Chalmers and the other Australians were interned and kept in a house near the island"s native hospital. On 25 March 1943, after an American bombing raid on Nauru"s Japanese-built airfield, the garrison"s second-in-command, Lieutenant
Hiromi Nakayama, ordered the execution of the five Australians.
Chalmers and his companions were beheaded, bayoneted, or shot (later testimony varied) and buried on the beach. After the war Nakayama was found guilty of murder by an Australian war crimes tribunal at Rabaul.
He was hanged in August 1946. A monument to Chalmers, as well as the other victims of the war, was erected on Nauru in 1951.
They had four daughters.