TIGHAR researcher, expedition veteran and board member Arthur Carty has spent years trying to determine the disposition Gallagher's personal effects. Art and his wife Janis are skilled genealogists and have been successful in sorting out the tangled web of Gallagher family members in England who could have ended up with the boxes shipped from Fiji - but, so far, no sign of the boxes.
Gallagher's sextant was reportedly given to the captain of HMS Viti who, as best Art has been able to tell, was Commander James Patrick Mullins. It is possible that the sextant still exists. Mullins died in February 1999 in Flintshire East, Clwyd, Wales. Do we have any forum members in the UK who could help find contact information for surviving Mullin relatives?
Ric, the date and location of death you cite seem to be incorrect. I have found a reference in the
New Zealand Martime Index that says Captain James Patrick Mullins, who commanded HMS
Viti during the wartimes, was born in Wairoa, NZ, and died in Auckland, NZ, in March 1969 at the age of 76. It would seem a great coincidence for two men of that name to have commanded the same ship.
If this is truly the man that Art is seeking, another reference (from
a speech on 27 August 2010 by the dean of the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Fiji National University) offers some intriguing leads for anyone seeking relatives of Captain Mullins. The speech was given at the time of the launch of the "Andrews Family Postgraduate Fellowship" at the college. In the speech, the Dean quoted the estate lawyer for the Andrews family:
The grant came from the Andrews Family Trust, set up by Paul J. & Margaret B. Andrews (husband & wife), formerly of Washington DC. Mrs Andrews was born in New Zealand in 1913 and moved to the US after World War II with Mr Andrews. He died in 1999 and she in 2001.
“This distribution is made in memory of the Grantor’s beloved twin sister, Moira Mary Tinline Johnston, RNZNS, who trained as a nurse at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva, and her husband, Lewis Lea Johnston, RAF, and the Grantor’s dear parents, Mary and William Tinline, of New Zealand, and the Grantor’s dear Uncle, James Patrick Mullins, RNR, of Fiji and New Zealand, and his wife, Nita.”
I find highly intriguing the ties between the search for Gallagher's sextant and the search for the bones that Gallagher found. The sextant is reported to have been given to a man who was uncle to a nurse at CWMH in Suva where, for all anyone knows, the bones may have at some point been housed!