Robert John Bevir

Ship name / Flight number: Morton Bay

Arrival Date: 1929

For the Fallen

By David Coleman

Over the years, I’ve attended many Anzac Day and Armistice Day (Remembrance Sunday) commemorations and stood in silence as the Ode was recited. When visiting country towns, I make a point of stopping at the local war memorials and reading the names of those inscribed.

One such memorial is the Honour Board at Karmsley Training Farm, erected by the Members of the Big Brother Movement to commemorate those Little Brothers known to have lost their lives while serving in the Australian Armed Services during World War II.

There are seventeen names on the board.

Robert John Bevir

Robert John Bevir was born in Timsbury, near Bath, Somerset, on 23 January 1913, to John and Dora Cecil Bevir of Everton, Hampshire. He arrived in Australia as a 16-year-old aboard the Moreton Bay on 3 October 1929.

Initially a civilian clerk with Headquarters, 1st Division, in Sydney, Robert joined the Australian Army Medical Corps on 7 August 1940. He continued with clerical duties aboard HMAHS Manunda as it travelled to and from the Middle East, returning to Sydney twice in 1941 and then sailing to Darwin in early 1942.

HMAHS Manunda was anchored in Darwin Harbour near the merchant ship Zealandia when it was hit by shrapnel and then a bomb during the first Japanese air raid on Darwin on 19 February 1942. Twelve members of the crew and hospital staff were killed, including Robert, and forty-seven others were wounded.

NX65289 Corporal Robert John Bevir was killed in action aboard the 2/1 Australian Hospital Ship Manunda at Darwin on 19 February 1942, aged 29. His body was initially buried in Darwin, then reinterred at the Adelaide River War Cemetery, Northern Territory, Panel 5. He is also commemorated on the Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour.

*This was prepared based on an internet article completed by a student from South Australia, who was one of the winners of the 2022 SA Premier’s Anzac Spirit School Prize.