About the Collections

Sound recordings

An illustration of the portable recording equipment used during the New Guinea campaign. This recording gear went through the first and second Libyan campaigns, as well as Greece and Syria, before going to New Guinea. The gear travelled over 30,000 miles in two years, carefully manned by PMG operator Bill MacFarlane. Here, MacFarlane operates the recorder, while ABC war correspondent Frank Legg, assisted by Marea, records his despatch. Frank Legg served with the army in the Middle East before becoming a war correspondent in 1942, covering first the Middle East, then New Guinea, and finishing in Tarakan in 1946. 044150

The sound collection consists of period music, radio interviews, and programs which are concerned with Australia's involvement in war and armed conflict, as well as oral history recordings. There are over 4,000 items, or 6,000 hours of recordings, in the collection.

Sound collection access

Of special interest is the Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of the Second World War: it has 365 indexed and transcribed interviews representing over 800 hours of recordings, and is available to the public in the Research Centre.

You can search our Collection, which provides access to over 1,700 recordings. There is also an index to transcripts and tapes held with the collection itself. Researchers can listen to tapes and MP3 digitial files in the Research Centre.