CHALMERS, Frederick Royden
| Service Number: | 10 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 16 May 1915, Adelaide, South Australia |
| Last Rank: | Lieutenant Colonel |
| Last Unit: | 27th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Brighton, Tasmania, Australia , 4 January 1881 |
| Home Town: | Bagdad, Southern Midlands, Tasmania |
| Schooling: | Brighton Public School |
| Occupation: | Civil servant |
| Died: | Executed (beheaded by Japanese), Nauru, Pacific Islands, 26 March 1943, aged 62 years |
| Cemetery: |
No known grave - "Known Unto God" Buried on a Nauruan beach |
| Memorials: | Nauru Memorial |
Boer War Service
| 1 Oct 1899: | Involvement Australian and Colonial Military Forces - Boer War Contingents, Private, 10, 1st Tasmanian Mounted Infantry Contingent | |
|---|---|---|
| 7 Mar 1901: | Involvement Australian and Colonial Military Forces - Boer War Contingents, Second Lieutenant, 2nd Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen | |
| 16 Sep 1902: | Discharged Australian and Colonial Military Forces - Boer War Contingents, Lieutenant, 2nd Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen |
World War 1 Service
| 16 May 1915: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Lieutenant, Adelaide, South Australia | |
|---|---|---|
| 31 May 1915: | Embarked AIF WW1, Lieutenant, 27th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Geelong, Adelaide | |
| 31 May 1915: | Involvement AIF WW1, Lieutenant, 27th Infantry Battalion, Enlistment/Embarkation WW1, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '15' embarkation_place: Adelaide embarkation_ship: HMAT Geelong embarkation_ship_number: A2 public_note: '' | |
| 26 Aug 1915: | Promoted AIF WW1, Captain, 27th Infantry Battalion | |
| 4 Sep 1915: | Involvement AIF WW1, Captain, 27th Infantry Battalion, ANZAC / Gallipoli | |
| 20 Nov 1916: | Promoted AIF WW1, Major, 27th Infantry Battalion | |
| 16 Dec 1917: | Promoted AIF WW1, Lieutenant Colonel, 27th Infantry Battalion | |
| 10 Oct 1919: | Discharged AIF WW1, Lieutenant Colonel, 27th Infantry Battalion |
Letter written by Frederick Royden Chalmers from South Africa 20 October 1900
Pretoria
Oct 20th 1900
Dear Elsie
It is really very good of you to write but you will have to do so more regularly if you want answers. I believe that you go in for telling lies as you said that you enclosed a copy of your ?? but it never reached me so something is wrong. Please give my love to Aunt and Uncle also Miss Paton. Really I ought to write but there is no news. Cyril is in town and intends writing. I am in the soldier's home doing this. We are all on for home now but don't know whether they will let us go, if they want Police work done let them pay policemen to do it that is what we say. I see that they are selling Orange Fr.S. K1/2 stamps for 10/- here so the ones I sent you ought to be worth something in a few years. I will get some of the Transvaal. The craze in town is money and stamps for a ticky? 3d is worth 2/6, 10/- is 12/6 Kruger I mean.
There is no more news from your loving Bro
Roy xxxx
I am sending some wild sweet pea.
Submitted 15 November 2025 by Kaye Nicholson
Letter written by Frederick Royden Chalmers from South Africa c1900
Edendale
Friday 6th of July
My dear Els
As this is a dirty piece of paper I will write to you instead of throwing it away. I am on the Tassie kop called after us. I arrived here at 5am this morning and here I have to stop till 8am tomorrow morning. I wrote home 2 days ago so you may as well send this on to them. Thirty Remounts arrived for us from Pretoria last night, nice ones they are too Argentines at that, good uns to kick buck and bite and make themselves generally useless by refusing to go when you on, get on them that takes a bit of (manouevring) “can’t spell it” and after once on some soon find themselves on their back the other side on the ground.
I am send you a bit of fern of this Kofje, one that will be remembered by we Tassies before all other kopjes as we very often are out here all night with only an overcoat just because the horrid Boer gave us a bit of a scare by appearing on the sky line towards evening. Here that the Imperial Bushmen are down in the State after De Wett hope they catch him.
I can’t write much of a letter as I have ½ dozen more to write while I have time and am in the humour. Don’t let anyone see this letter and read it out if you like as it is such a scribble. I got my watch case and glasses yesterday and would not have got them then only the little parcel they were in broke and the color Sergt seeing my name on one gave it to me, the glass I wanted badly as my was broken, that is through obliging people by lending it to them while on picket guard “never again”.
I have just finished fixing my glass in. Cyril’s letters and parcels are going to be sent on to him at Bethulie. We did not know where he was till Mr Brown came up from hospital and let us know.
Give my best love to all at No 28 including Miss Paton. We had a little sing song last night the officers joining in and tomorrow (Saturday) we play a football match against the Warwicks. We want something to liven us up or we would go melencoly (can’t spell that word) mad. One of the songs sung last night was a skit on The Death of Cock Robin. Here it is.
All the Boers of the states one and all fell a sighing and sobbing when they heard of the death of old Omm Paul. Takes up too much room so I will put it on another piece of paper. You may have heard it before but you may not also.
We are always hearing rumours about the time we are going home. The one now is between the 15th and 25th of this month hope it true if we have to stay in camp like this.
Goodbye old girl with love from your brother Roy
Mr Wylas Mours has a billet in Johannesburg and has gone to it.
Roy Chalmers
Submitted 15 November 2025 by Kaye Nicholson
WW1
The details provided are taken from the book "Stealth Raiders - a few daring men in 1918" written by Lucas Jordan, published 2017, refer to pages 125 to 128 and 264. Prior to the war he was a Government servant in Victoria. He enlisted 16th May 1915. He finished the war as the Commanding Officer of the 27th Infantry Battalion. He survived the war, and departed the UK for home 16th June 1919.
Submitted 27 January 2020 by Maxwell HILL
Biography contributed by Scott Seymour
"No Turning Back' (The Life Story of Lt. Col. F.R. Chalmers CMG DSO) was released this year, compiled and written by Scott Seymour, and details his life from beginning to end. The book contains many photographs previously never before seen thanks to access to the family archives.
ISBN 978-1-36-777211-3
Biography
Frederick Chalmers, son of Robert Hamilton Chalmers and Emily Lousia (Walter) Chalmers, was born in Brighton, Tasmania, on 4 January 1881, into a farming family. He had four brothers and four sisters.
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 St. Michael and St. George in 1919 .
Returning to Tasmania with his new wife, Lenna Annette French, whom he had married in London in 1917, he worked for several years in agriculture in Bagdad and in mining on the west coast of Tasmania. He headed an association of veterans and was involved in the Boy Scouts.
In 1938, Chalmers was selected from among 70 candidates to succeed R.C. Garsia as head of the administration of Nauru, a Pacific island supervised by Australia under League of Nations mandate. It 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, Lt. 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.
His wife Lenna died while he was in captivity. They had four daughters. He had a son Roy and two daughters, Molly and Emily Noreen, with his first wife Mary
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