Nauru Tragedy

How Colonel Chalmers and His Companions Were Murdered

The following was published in Sydney “ Bulletin” of September 11; Though I didn’t see it in the papers or in the Parliamentary reports, it is a fact that on the afternoon of Wednes day. May 15, 1946, at the Rabaul War Criminal Court, Lieut.-Commander Nak ayama, of 67 Naval Garrison Unit, was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Colonel Chalmers, Dr. Quinn and Messrs. Shugg, Harmer and Doyle.* (Colonel Chalmers was Administrator of Nauru, and the others stayed with him, in 1942, to guard the natives and Euro pean property.) The only witness was Ma Na Fai. a Chinese from Nauru. Other evidence produced was documentary.

This is the story: On March 23, 1943, the five white men were moved to a house in the Chinese location on Nauru.

On the night of March 25 there were three Allied raids with bombing and strafing. Eight Jap medium bombers and seven fighters were damaged on the airstrip, and the lookout station was blown up. About 2 a.m. on March 26 a truck carrying a number of Japs and the five white men was driven to the beach, where Colonel Chalmers and his companions were shot and buried in a hole dug for the purpose.

Nakayama admitted responsibility for the killing, but claimed that it was jus tified. As OC Garrison he had received an intelligence report that a large Allied convoy had been sighted about 300 miles south of Nauru. He considered that a landing on Nauru was intended, and that if Colonel Chalmers and his companions were to escape they would incite the natives to revolt and embarrass the Jap defence of the island. To ensure that they would not escape it was “necessary” to kill them.

The trial was all over in one after noon.