Australian Bravery Awards: Nauru Five get Group Bravery Citation

They were executed in horrific circumstances and buried in lost graves. Now, after a long battle, these brave Aussies are finally being recognised.

John Quin was six years old when he said goodbye to his father — evacuated along with other women and children from the island of Nauru in WWII as the dreaded Japanese approached.

More than three years later, John and his mother were on a train, when she noticed a newspaper being read by a man opposite carried a report of “Australians executed” — and recognised her husband.

“That newspaper caught us off guard,” Mr Quin, of Brighton, recalled.

His father was Dr Bernard Quin, one of five Australian men executed and buried in a “lost” beach grave on the tropical island; who today, 76 years later, have finally been officially recognised as heroes with a government bravery award — as stunning new evidence of their extraordinary courage has emerged.

Dr Bernard Quin (seated) and Wilfred Shugg (right) refused to abandon the locals in their care.

Dr Quin, along with fellow Victorians medical assistant Wilfred Shugg and engineer Frederick Harmer plus Tasmanian First World War legend Frederick Royden Chalmers and NSW former Light Horse Trooper William Doyle were civilian administrators, who bravely defied official advice to flee the invaders in 1942.

New documents show they not only refused to abandon the locals in their care — but planned a last-ditch stand with an armoury of rifles and machine guns; a brave but doomed tactic they reluctantly dropped to spare those same locals terrible retribution.

The last photo of Roy Chalmers with his family. He was executed by the Japanese on Nauru in 1943.

Last year News Corp Australia told the little-known story of how the Nauru Five were imprisoned then, months later, brutally killed: either beheaded or bayoneted and shot then shoved into a pit; and we revealed the execution site has been identified, as a result of dogged work by Hobart historian Scott Seymour.

Author Scott Seymour with Andrew Ramage, the grandson of Frederick Royden Chalmers. Picture: Matt Thompson

The men are now posthumous recipients of a Group Bravery Citation in the Australian Bravery Awards, announced by the Governor-General the Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Retd) — a move that has delighted relatives who have long campaigned for official recognition of their actions.

“I think it’s a great thing,” said Doyle’s great-nephew Gregory Byrne.

Doyle, a drover from Singleton who served with a light horse in WW1, does not have any known direct descendants. He is believed to have been married briefly but went to Nauru after the marriage ended — where he threw himself into duty and found himself, in the words of Byrne, among “a group of men who decided to stay against all the odds.”

EXCLUSIVE: Nauru Five’s beach grave located

EXCLUSIVE: War hero’s hidden family tragedy

Now the Nauru Five are in line for further recognition, after Seymour established that despite being on Nauru originally as civilians they are likely eligible for the military Defence Medal — and he unearthed a stunning new account of their courage.

Andrew Ramage says his family is thrilled about the bravery citation.

A diary from the island’s police chief has revealed Chalmers and the other four had formed a defence force, equipped by Australia. Despite training and setting up strong points — and initial defiant words from that police chief that he “would rather die with a rifle in his hand” than surrender — ultimately they abandoned the doomed resistance; Seymour and Chalmers’ grandson Roy are convinced it was to spare the islanders from carnage.

“I think that’s pretty clear,” adds Seymour, noting that Chalmers’ intimate knowledge of war would have governed his decision.

Boer War and WW1 veteran Frederick “Roy” Chalmers.

Following the Boer War he served in South Australia’s 27th Battalion in WWI on Gallipoli and the Western Front, rising from private to a much-loved lieutenant-colonel, earning the Distinguished Service Order along the way.

Seymour, who has made discovering the truth of what happened on Nauru his goal, nominated the men for the award — and said he was thrilled that it had been granted.

“Better late than never,” he added.

The recognition is a further note of closure for two strands of Chalmers’ family who until recently were almost unaware of each other.

As News Corp revealed last year, Chalmers had been cut out of the lives of his children by his first wife after she died, by his mother-inlaw.

While he married again and had children, he never forgot his first family in Victoria — and among his final words to daughter Winifred before the Japanese arrived at Nauru was the wish that one day all his children would sit down together.

Last year their descendants did just that, in Tasmania — and Andrew Ramage, of Launceston, says they are all united in pride at the citation.

“The whole family feels that way,” he said. “They are thrilled.”

The Governor-General paid tribute to the men, saying of the award: “This has given us as a nation the opportunity to recognise the bravery of the five men, whose decision in 1942 to stay in Nauru ultimately cost them their lives.

“They were brave and, with this award, their families and loved ones should know that Australia is both grateful and proud of their actions.”

Originally published as Australian Bravery Awards: Nauru Five get Group Bravery Citation