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Husband of Marjorie KAPIU, Badu Island, Torres Strait

Kapiu Masi Gagai (1894–1946)
by Jenny Rich

Kapiu Masi Gagai (c.1894-1946), pearler, boatman, mission worker, carpenter, and soldier, was born about 1894 probably on Mabuiag Island, Torres Strait, Queensland, second son of Newa Gagai and his wife Kubi. Kapiu belonged to the Kodal (crocodile) clan and the Badu tribe, and was later adopted—in the Islander way—by a married couple Nomoa and Kaidai. Taken to Badu Island as a child, he received a basic education at the local school, religious instruction from London Missionary Society and Church of England missionaries, and was trained as a carpenter. From the age of about fifteen he worked as a swimmer-diver, sailing in the Islander-owned pearling lugger, Wakaid.

On 22 December 1915 at Bethlehem Church, Badu, Gagai married with Anglican rites a local woman Laina Getawan (d.1923), daughter of Getawan and Dabangai; they were to have three daughters. In June 1921 Rev. James Watson recruited him to join the staff of (South) Goulburn Island (Methodist) Mission, Northern Territory, as a boat captain and lay mission worker. Gagai's wife and children accompanied him there. He later worked at Milingimbi Mission. At Goulburn Island Mission on 26 October 1929 he married Mujerambi (Marjorie), daughter of Alfred Joseph Voules Brown, trepanger and trader, and Mumuludj, an Iwaidja-speaking Aboriginal woman; Kapiu and Mujerambi were to have ten children.

In April 1932 Gagai took his family back to Badu where he was employed as a carpenter and went to sea in another Islander-owned pearling lugger. The anthropologist Donald Thomson hired him in May 1935 to take charge of the auxiliary ketch, St Nicholas, which he sailed off Arnhem Land. Thomson named Kapiu Point, near the entrance to the Koolatong River, in his honour, but this name has not been officially recognized. When Thomson left the Territory in 1937, Gagai resumed his former occupations at Badu before operating a punt for the Queensland Main Roads Commission.

Despite being over-age and classified as medically unfit, Gagai enlisted in the Australian Military Forces on 27 October 1941 and immediately joined the 7th Military District's Special Reconnaissance Unit, commanded by Thomson. Gagai was boatswain of the unit's armed vessel, Aroetta, which patrolled the coast of Arnhem Land in 1942-43. He was twice placed in charge of an outpost at Caledon Bay, became an expert Vickers-gunner and was promoted acting sergeant. In recommending him for a decoration, Thomson praised his sense of responsibility, devotion to duty, leadership, loyalty, unselfishness and the example he set for others. The unit was disbanded in mid-1943 and Gagai was posted to the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion on Thursday Island. In late 1943 he was seconded to the 11th Infantry Brigade and took part in a hazardous expedition led by Thomson in Netherlands New Guinea. Thomson subsequently wrote:

I well remember the quiet, steadfast courage of Sergeant Kapiu . . . [who] was a first-class waterman. He was strong and he had no nerves. He could work and when the tension was over he could sleep like a log. He did not fret and worry and waste nervous energy . . . He was powerful—massive is a better word—impassive; even stolid. But he could laugh—a laugh halfway between the angels and Rabelais.

Thomson, Gagai, and another soldier were wounded when New Guineans attacked the party close to Japanese outposts on the Eilanden River. After recovering in hospital at Merauke from a deep machete cut to his neck, Gagai returned to Thursday Island. From January 1944 he was with No.14 Australian Small Ship Company, supervising Islander and Aboriginal soldiers, and occasionally piloting small craft in Torres Strait and around Cape York. He served in the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion from March 1945 until he was discharged on 28 March 1946.

Gagai was 'a loyal churchman' and a chorister who loved his people's traditional songs and dances. Big and strong, he was kind, patient and wise, and greatly respected by everyone who knew him. He spoke Kala Lagaw Ya, English and some Aboriginal languages, and had a detailed knowledge of Torres Strait waters and the coasts of Cape York and Arnhem Land. Like other Islanders in the A.M.F., he did not receive the same pay and conditions as his non-Indigenous counterparts. Gagai died of lobar pneumonia on 21 August 1946 at Thursday Island and was buried in Badu Island cemetery. His wife and seven of their children survived him, as did two daughters of his first marriage.

Source: Jenny Rich, 'Gagai, Kapiu Masi (1894–1946) (adb.anu.edu.au)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gagai-kapiu-masi-10266/text18157, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 31 May 2026. 

The Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit

The following sections are excerpts from an ABC News article published on 19 April 2026, used here to illustrate the historical context of the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit and the service of Kapiu Gagai. All quoted material is drawn directly from the article “Solomon’s Six: The Mystery WWII Kill Squad”.

Road to recruitment

"The Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit was established at a tense and tumultuous time in the Top End.

Japanese forces were pummelling northern towns with bullets and bombs, first killing 235 people in Darwin and then dozens more in a surprise air raid in Broome.

Many believed a land invasion was imminent. 

And so the highly irregular Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit was formed to patrol the rugged Arnhem Land coast and attack and kill any foreign troops who made it ashore.

In charge was anthropologist Donald Thomson, who in 1952 told the BBC his priority was recruiting senior warriors of the local Yolngu clans."

"Ironically, several of the Yolngu soldiers had previously been imprisoned for murdering Japanese fishermen on a remote beach a decade earlier.

Now, they were being directed to catch and kill Japanese men by the Australian government."

"Also recruited to the unit was Torres Strait Islander man Kapiu Gagai"

"The unit began a gruelling regime of training and patrols, moving between isolated bush camps and largely living off the land.

It would have been really hard because my people knew the Yolngu way, and the Solomon Islands men had a different way of living," said Tommy Munyarryun, who is from the Wangurri clan.

But they worked together well, and they pushed into one really strong unit."

Many questions

"By May 1943, the battlefront was moving away from Australia, and the unit was disbanded."

"The men didn't receive any veterans' benefits, nor were they included in commemorations held tohonour the Northern Territory Reconnaissance Unit."

"At the time, soldiers were paid according to their race.

In the 1990s, the unit's Aboriginal soldiers were retrospectively honoured with medals and back-pay to compensate for the underpayment, but it's not known if a similar offer will be made to the Solomon Six."

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The excerpts below draw from the Australian War Memorial’s entry “Indigenous defence service”, used here to provide additional historical context on Torres Strait Islander service and the role of Kapiu Gagai. 

"In some areas the war caused great hardship. In the islands of Torres Strait, the pearling luggers that provided most of the local income were confiscated in case they fell into Japanese hands. The Islanders enlisted in units such as the Torres Strait Light Infantry, in which their pay was much lower than whites and often not enough to send home to feed their families"

Torres Strait Islander units

Since early the early twentieth century proposals were made to train the Indigenous Australians of northern Australia as a defence force. In the Second World War these ideas were tried out.

In 1941 the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion was formed to defend the strategically-important Torres Strait area. Other Islander units were also created, especially for water transport and as coastal artillery. The battalion never had the chance to engage the enemy but some were sent on patrol into Japanese-controlled Dutch New Guinea.

By 1944 almost every able-bodied male Torres Strait Islander had enlisted. However, they never received the same rates of pay or conditions as white soldiers. At first their pay was one-third that of regular soldiers. After a two-day "mutiny" in December 1943 this was raised to two-thirds.

In proportion to population, no community in Australia contributed more to the war effort in the Second World War than the Torres Strait Islanders.

Donald Thomson and the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit

Donald Thomson was an anthropologist from Melbourne who had lived with the East Arnhem Land Indigenous Australians for two years in the 1930s. In 1941 he set up and led the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit, an irregular army unit consisting of 51 Indigenous Australians, five whites, and a number of Pacific and Torres Strait Islanders. Three of the men had been to gaol for killing the crews of two Japanese pearling luggers in 1932. Now they were told that it was their duty to kill Japanese.

The members of the unit were to use their traditional bushcraft and fighting skills to patrol the coastal area, establish coastwatchers, and fight a guerilla war against any Japanese who landed. Living off the country and using traditional weapons, they were mobile and had no supply line to protect. Thomson shared the group's hardships and used his knowledge of Aboriginal custom to help deal with traditional rivalries. The unit was eventually disbanded, once the fear of a Japanese landing had disappeared.

The Indigenous Australians in the unit received no monetary pay until back pay and medals were finally awarded in 1992.

Kapiu Masai Gagai

Kapiu Gagai was a Torres Strait Islander from Badu Island. He was a skilled boatman and carpenter and was working on pearling luggers when he joined Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land during the 1930s. In 1941 he again joined Thomson, this time in the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit. As bosun of Thomson’s vessel, the Aroetta, he patrolled the coast to prevent Japanese infiltration. Later he accompanied Thomson on patrol into Japanese-held Dutch New Guinea, where he was badly wounded. Gagai never received equivalent pay to white soldiers, which was also difficult for his family during and after the war.

Indigenous personnel are known to have served in later conflicts and operations (including in Somalia, East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq, and on peacekeeping operations) but no numbers are available.

In the 1980s the Department of Defence began collecting information about Indigenous heritage, and these figures show that the number of Indigenous men and women serving in the Australian Defence Force has been increasing since the 1990s. The department claimed that in early 2014 there were 1,054 Indigenous service personnel (on both permanent and active reserve) in the Australian Defence Force, representing about 1.4 per cent of the ADF’s uniformed workforce.