Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family Group:

British War Medal 1914-20 (873 Cpl. A. R. Emmett 39 Bn A.I.F.) dark toned, good very fine

Five: Lance Bombardier A. A. Emmett, 4th Anti-Tank Regiment, Australian Imperial Force, who was executed by the Japanese at Tavoy, Burma on 6 June 1942 and awarded a posthumous Commendation for Gallantry in 2011
1939-45 Star; Pacific Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Australia Service Medal, all officially named ‘VX38444 A. A. Emmett’; together with a copy Australian Commendation for Gallantry, good very fine or better (6) £1,200-£1,500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Warwick Cary.

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Alfred Roy Emmett, a native of Hamilton, Victoria, Australia, was born in 1893, the son of Frank De La Warr Emmett and Kate F. Emmett of Ouyen, Victoria, Australia. He attested for the Australian Imperial Forces on 8 April 1916, embarking from Melbourne for overseas services with C Company, 39th Infantry Battalion, aboard the Ascanius on 27 May 1916. After arriving in England, he embarked for France on 23 November 1916 and was killed in action on the Western Front on 29 April 1917. He is buried in Strand Military Cemetery, Ploegstreet, Belgium.

Aubrey Alfred Emmett, nephew of the above, was born on 16 May 1919 in Ouyen, Victoria, the son of Robert James Delaware Emmett and Eleanor Thompson. He attested for the Australian Imperial Force on 17 July 1940 and was posted to the 2/4th Anti-Tank Regiment at Puckapunyal. Embarking with his unit from Sydney on 2 February 1941, he arrived Singapore on 19 February 1941, was promoted Lance Bombardier on 9 June 1941 at Tampin and appointed a Substantive Gun Layer on 7 August 1941. Emmett was wounded in action (gun-shot wound to left wrist) on 10 February 1942 during the defence of Malaya and admitted to the 13th Australian General Hospital. Upon recuperation, he re-joined his unit as a Prisoner of War at Changi gaol on 6 March 1942.

In May 1942, Emmett was sent from Singapore with ‘A Force’ to Tavoy to commence the construction of the Burma section of the infamous Burma-Thailand Railway. The following month, led by Warrant Officer Class II M. W. Quittenton, Emmett and seven other members of the 2/4th Anti-Tank Regiment, afterwards known as the ‘Tavoy Eight’, escaped but were recaptured after a brief period of freedom. Despite protests from the Australian officers, the Japanese ordered the escapees to be executed without trial. Their deaths, on 6 June 1942, were witnessed by Brigadier Varley, M.C. and Bar, the senior Australian officer, who recorded in his diary:
‘I was forced to stand by and watch these men shot. Death was instantaneous. Just before death the spirit of these eight Australians was wonderful. They all spoke cheerio and good luck messages to one another and never showed any fear. A truly courageous end.’

Brigadier Varley spoke to Major Itsui, the Japanese Senior Officer and advised him that he would have him listed as a war criminal due to his act of murder, to which Itysui replied, ‘Do you really think Britain is going to win the war?’
Varley replied, ‘Certainly I do’, and the response from Itsui, ‘You are a brave man.’
On 20 June 1950, Major Itsui received life imprisonment for the murder of the ‘Tavoy Eight’.

Emmett is buried in Thanbyuzayat Military Cemetery, Burma. One of the other seven men executed was Gunner Alan William Glover, a friend of the Emmetts who had also lived in Ouyen. Aubrey Emmett’s brother Frank, also of the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment, worked on the Burma-Thailand Railway and was later transported to Japan in a work party. At the end of the war he was liberated from a camp in Nakama, Japan. He died in 1953 as a result of his injuries and experience as a prisoner of war.

On 6 March 2011, following a tribunal enquiry into the recognition of Australian prisoners of war who were killed while escaping from the Japanese forces in the Second World War, Australian Secretary for Defence, Senator David Feeney announced that Aubrey Emmett and the other members of the ‘Tavoy Eight’ would be posthumously awarded the Commendation for Gallantry.

The Commendation for Gallantry was introduced into the Australian Honours System in 1991 as a replacement for the Imperial ‘Mentioned in Despatches’. There have been 70 awards made since its inception, of which 20 were awarded posthumously in 2011 to Australian prisoners of war who were either killed attempting to escape from the Japanese or were executed after their recapture during the Second World War.

Sold with a quantity of copied research and six original, wartime photographs of the recipient, one of which also features his brother Frank.

Note: This lot is available for viewing in Swanbourne, Western Australia, by appointment with our Australasian representative, John Burridge.