One year ago today, the Australian War Memorial joined the Commons on Flickr.  We put up a set of 30 photos of soldiers, sailors, nurses, airmen, wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts, a prime minister, and a koala. The photos are part of our photo collection of well over a million images which covers the experience of Australians at war and Australian military history from the 1860s to the present.  We have uploaded other sets on the Commons since then, each with its own theme: Christmas, children, animals, ANZAC Day, and First World War aviation.

 The 103 images have been viewed almost 180,000 times; there have been over 530 comments, 2,000 favorites, 340 tags and 830 contacts. read on

The notebooks, diaries and folders created by Charles Bean during and after the First World War have immense historic value and are considered to be one of the most significant records created by a single Australian. The collection includes 286 volumes of diaries and historical notebooks recorded by Bean at the time and often at the front line. The diaries are firsthand accounts of the war and offer a unique perspective due to Bean’s status as official correspondent. read on

The notebooks and diaries of C.E.W. Bean provide valuable insight into the last days of the First World War. Bean was Australia’s sole official correspondent and he worked assiduously throughout the four years of the war recording events, often from the front line.

Charles Bean was staying in Lille, France during November, 1918. He was an experienced investigator and interviewer and his diaries of the weeks before Armistice detail the emotions and concerns of those who knew the war was coming to an end. Bean, who generally had access to all levels of command, writes of conversations with Generals John Monash and William Birdwood and discusses the opinions of members of the international press and political leaders including Australia’s Prime Minister Billy Hughes on the peace process. Bean spent much of his time throughout the war interviewing Australian soldiers and recording their stories. During the last months of the war he takes the time to observe and record the feelings of average French civilians noting their opinions and feelings towards Germany.

The weeks leading up to Armistice are described by Bean in his diary as subdued. He wrote “I think it is the dead who rise up between the survivors” that prevents “any sort of Bacchanalian rejoicing”. Journalists and those in command that Bean talked to were initially sceptical about Germany’s intentions. After the Kaiser and his son had abdicated and fled on the 10 November, scepticism turned to a concern about what position Germany would be in to negotiate peace and who was in command. He noted conversations that he had with military commanders, politicians and journalists and recorded their concerns about the potential break up of Germany. Many feared that the country would slide into Bolshevism. Bean wrote that if Germany split there may not be money to compensate Belgium and France. By November Bean did not support the demands on Germany strongly expressed by Billy Hughes. Australia’s Prime Minister was in France lobbying through the press and political channels for extensive reparations for all the Allied countries including Australia. Bean described the speech that Hughes gave to the French War Cabinet as unrealistic.   read on

 

The Australian War Memorial faces unique challenges presented by the modern age to its collection development for recent conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan. With email, phones and internet communicative tools largely replacing traditional keepsakes such as diaries and letters, this has made identifying and retaining objects of the ADF experience in modern conflict rather difficult. Furthermore, given that the number of ADF personnel serving overseas is far less than those who saw service in such conflicts as the World Wars, this also limits the amount of material representing recent conflicts and therefore what will shape the Memorial’s collections in the future.

One attempt to address this issue involved a representative from the Memorial being sent, in late 2008 to accompany Australian forces in Iraq. Mal Booth, former Head of the Memorial’s Research Centre, was fortunate enough spend time with Australian forces in Iraq and was able to identify and target items which would be of interest to the Memorial. Some of this material was identified on the industrious HMAS Parramatta, which was at that time conducting its second tour of the Gulf as part of Operation CATALYST. Mal travelled with the ship on his journey and found that the vessel and its crew provided extensive opportunities for proactive collecting.

In September 2009, the Memorial returned to HMAS Parramatta in order to gather further material…

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Yesterday, 27th October was UNESCO’s World Day for Audiovisual Heritage.

In 2005 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) indentified the archiving and preservation of audiovisual documents as an outstanding issue needing addressing, stating that:

Much of the world’s audiovisual heritage has already been irrevocably lost through neglect, destruction, decay and the lack of resources, skills, and structures, thus impoverishing the memory of mankind. Much more will be lost if stronger and concerted international action is not taken.  

The Australian War Memorial’s Film and Sound section work to document and preserve audiovisual items relating to Australia’s Military History, and to make these accessible to the public.

The sound collection comprises approximately 7,000 hours (over 4000 titles) of sound recordings, held mainly on disc, magnetic tape and increasingly as digital files. 

90% of the collection consists of oral history interviews covering the First World War, Second World War, Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, and peacekeeping operations. The rest comprises actuality recordings – radio transmissions, operational sounds of weapons and equipment; letters/messages recorded from servicemen overseas to their families in Australia; radio variety programs and documentaries; radio broadcasts, consisting of recruiting announcements, commercials, jingles, speeches and addresses; songs and military band music including marches. 

The film and video collection is currently comprised of over 7,000 titles (approx 3.25 million feet of cine film). Films in the collection includes footage of Gallipoli and the Western Front in the First World War, Official films and Newsreels sourced from the Department of Information in the Second World War and amateur footage from Korea and Vietnam. This collection also includes approximately 1000 hours of video encompassing video oral histories, as well as interviews and footage filmed in Iraq and East Timor on current operations.

Film donations are received from a range of donors from amateur film makers to documentary companies. Much material has been acquired from Department of Defence or via fee waiver agreements.  Material commissioned by the Memorial has recently increased the amount of contemporary, quality material to the National Collection

Below are some examples of audiovisual collection items held by the Australian War Memorial:

Listen to an extract from an Oral History interview S00422.

S00422: Harold Arthur Freeman, as a crew member of HMAS Sydney during the First World War. Harold began his Naval Career as a 14 year old on the training ship HMAS Tingira. He then transferred to HMAS Sydney and was on board during the Sydney’s battle and victory over SMS Emden in November 1914.  

http://cas.awm.gov.au/sound/S00422

Some examples of film extracts

F00069: With the Dardanelles Expedition: heroes of Gallipoli. Filmed by British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead Bartlett in 1915 (http://cas.awm.gov.au/film/F00069)

F03455: 21st Light Horse Regiment  scene showing  a parade of the 4th Cavalry Brigade at Parramatta, 6 March 1940 filmed by Harold Conway (http://cas.awm.gov.au/film/F03455)

F03456: Dallas Cressey of the 2/3 Motor Transport Company, footage filmed as a  prisoner of the Japanese during the Second World War (http://cas.awm.gov.au/film/F03456)

F04775: The bombing of Darwin, 19 February 1942 filmed by Francis Sheldon-Collins (http://cas.awm.gov.au/film/F04775)

F01866: Assault on Salamaua filmed by Damien Parer, 1943 complete scene showing Private William Johnson being helped by Sergeant Gordon Ayre across a stream and along a muddy track. (http://cas.awm.gov.au/film/F01866)

F07532: 3 RAR in Korea filmed by the Military History Section – cameraman unknown. (http://cas.awm.gov.au/film/F07532)

F11557: Super8mm footage filmed by Michael Chapman, 3 RAR  on 12 February 1968 in Baria during the Viet Cong Tet offensive

F04691: Christmas message from Tim Fischer, Vietnam, 1968 filmed by Defence Public Relations (http://cas.awm.gov.au/film/F04691)

F08390: No Dramas: A documentary film made by Robert Nugent using footage taken in Iraq 2006 as the Australian War Memorial’s Official Cinematographer

In January 1919 tattered pieces of uniform were found lying among the bones of the men of the 16th Battalion, who were killed trying to advance at the Bloody Angle on 2 May 1915. These items were recovered by Lieutenant William Hopkins James, who headed a small party to Gallipoli for the Australian War Records Section (the precursor to the Australian War Memorial). They arrived at Gallipoli in mid December 1918, and remained there until late March 1919. With the assistance of members of the 7th Light Horse Regiment, who were stationed in the area at the time, they collected items, and photographed the area. In February 1919 they were joined by the Australian Historical Mission, lead by Official Historian C E W Bean.

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 Common Ground is a global meet up celebrating the Commons on Flickr.  Many of the organisations which have images in the Commons will be participating in the meet-up, which will take place on the weekend of 2 and 3 October.

The meet-up will be in the form of a projection onto – or within – the participating institution’s building at night (or suitable day-time location) using a slideshow of content from the Commons on Flickr accounts curated by the community.

There are over 400 images in the set, and they are an amazing selection.  There are sad photos, funny ones, cute ones, one that make you think, ones that you will not expect.  Some are in colour, many are black and white.  Some show ordinary people doing ordinary things, some will make you gasp.  They demonstrate not only the differences between the collections from which they are drawn, but also the things that are the same, the common ground. 

Here at the Australian War Memorial, the images will projected on the large screen in our orientation gallery over the weekend.  The Powerhouse Museum and the State Library of New South Wales are joining forces in Sydney, and the State Libraryof Queensland is also taking part. 

In the Northern Hemisphere, the meet-up is on at George Eastman House, State Library and Archives of Florida, the Oregon State University Archives ,  Brooklyn Museum and the New York Public Library and the Swedish National Heritage Board

Read more about the Commons on Flickr, see the Memorial’s images on the Commons, or read more about the Common Ground event in the Collections Australia Network blog.

Update:  If you missed the event, you can still see the images in this slide show on Flickr Commons and read the Common Ground wrap-up on the indicommons blog.

Those who regularly read the AWM blog might remember the Valentine’s Day blog post about a mysterious love letter from a young French woman to her soldier sweetheart.

This letter, and the mystery that surrounds it, created lots of interest. With the help of an enthusiastic member of the public, and her wonderfully helpful relative in France, we have since found a few more details about Marthe and her letter.

Marthe and her family were evacuated from Armentières, on the French/Belgian border, to Saint-Sulpice-Les-Feuilles during the First World War. Armentières was destroyed during the war and rebuilt afterwards.

It was in Saint-Sulpice-Les-Feuilles that Marthe met her sweetheart. However, the identity of Marthe’s sweetheart and his fate remain a mystery. The two never married as he rejoined his battalion and never came back to her. Marthe’s nephew heard the story from his father but the family cannot recall his name after all these years. However, enquires continue and I’ll do another blog post if any more information turns up.

Marthe’s letter will be on public display as part of the Memorial’s Of Love and War exhibition opening in December.

Today I was out at our Conservation and Storage Annex showing journalists through Big Things In Store to get the word out about the event this Sunday.

The team has done a great job moving objects and creating walkways ready for Sunday so visitors can get a closer look at our Big Things. This year, will be a special chance to see the Dingo Scout Car’s components, because the different parts are spread out in the workshop ready for the conservators to start their work.

 

My personal favourite this time would have to be our robot. Known as “Jeffery the Robot” after its inventor, this small remote-controlled robot is a protoype that never made it to production. It was designed to deliver small charges to destroy the enemy’s barbed wire and bunkers without endangering troops.

The team has been busy preparing, so if you’re still unsure of what to do with Dad on Sunday, head out to Big Things In Store.

Big Things In Store
Australian War Memorial Conservation and Storage Annex
Callan Street, Mitchell ACT

12pm – 4pm.
Entry by donation.

Closed flat footwear is required for entry. No large bags, tripods, monopods.

P.s. Did you know the Australian War Memorial is on facebook, flickr and twitter! Don’t forget to share your photos from Big Things In Store with us.

The Western Front was epitomised by the brute force of men against machine and each other. Tens of thousands were lost in the maelstrom of war. In the horror, friendships were forged that endured even through death. This is the story of one such friendship…

Wally Brown was a grocer. He did not necessarily want to be a grocer but neither did he want to follow in the footsteps of his father as a miller. The small Tasmanian community of New Norfolk, into which he was born in 1885, was a progressive ‘postal, telegraphic and money order township’. The town boasted the New Norfolk Literary Institution complete with a library of some 1200 volumes and a ‘very fine and well built lunatic asylum’. Progressive it might have been, but at 26 years of age Brown had itchy feet. In 1911 he left New Norfolk for the bustling lifestyle of Petersham in Sydney.

 

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