Blog category - Collection

Lockheed Hudson Mark IV Bomber Conservation begins.

28 September 2010 by Jamie Croker. No comments
Collection,Conservation

The conservation of the Lockheed Hudson Bomber A16-105 has begun in the War Memorial’s Treloar workshops, the main aim of the work being the refitting of the upper and lower gun positions, as well as internal fitout of equipment and furnishings and application of a paint scheme more representative of that worn by the aircraft during Second World War service. 

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RAAF Biographical Files from the Second World War

17 September 2010 by Jessie Webb. 3 Comments
Family history,From the collection,Personal Stories

At the outbreak of the Second World War, there were some 450 Australians serving with the Royal Air Force (RAF) on short-term commissions. Once the Empire Air Training Scheme got underway, thousands more Australians arrived in Britain. Many of them were posted to Royal Air Force squadrons, even though they were members of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

As these Australians were serving with the RAF, many of the important records usually used to research someone’s service, such as squadron records, are held in Britain rather than Australia. This can make it difficult if you are based in Australia to trace an individual’s career using archival records.

Fortunately, in 1943 RAAF Overseas Headquarters began to compile biographical files of some of its personnel serving in Britain. Their purpose was to collect historical information on Australians serving in the RAAF, RAF and Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve who achieved distinction, and they were to be used by the RAAF Historical Records Section. These records are now held at the Australian War Memorial in the archival series AWM65. The files include a basic survey that collects the airman’s personal information and details of operations, decorations, previous service experience and sometimes details of squadrons and aircraft. The records can also include press releases and newspaper cuttings, debriefs, transcripts of interviews and any form of publicity such as Air Ministry or RAAF bulletins, scripts of BBC “Calling Australia” broadcasts and newspaper reports.

One particularly interesting file is about Charles Gordon Chaloner Olive (AWM65 4018). Gordon Olive was a civil engineering cadet in Brisbane when he joined the RAAF. He trained at Point Cook and took up a short service commission in the RAF in 1937. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Olive was a Flying Officer in 65 Squadron. He became one of the small number of Australian pilots who participated in both the evacuation at Dunkirk and, later, the Battle of Britain.

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Curator’s favourites

01 September 2010 by Liz Holcombe. 1 Comment
Collection,Conservation

One of the questions asked today on Ask a Curator day on Twitter was:

Q: Interested to know if the curators have a favourite piece, or does it change with each new exhibition?

Our curators came up with a lot of different answers:

Jessie: 

I love Middleton VC’s service dress uniform for the personal connection. He was a family friend prior to the war and trained in my hometown. (You can read more about R. H  Middleton over here.)

Another is our quirky First World War knitting pattern which gives you directions for knitting two socks at once.

Dianne:

The German camouflage observation post (called a “Baumbeobachter” by the Germans, literally meaning “tree observer”) because it looks so real.

Chris: 

It varies, and personally I can never settle on one item. I am constantly discovering items which are new to me but have been in the collection since 1919; and new donations always have a wee treasure or story lurking in them. Also, as you note, exhibition development allows you to investigate and research individual items more intensely, and thus appreciate their provenance, history and associations. As a curator, you have your areas of expertise and speciality but exhibitions, due to their broader scope, will present subjects and objects with which you have no familiarity. It’s often a steep but rewarding learning experience.   

Objects in themselves are interesting, often beautifully made, but it is the stories which accompany them which elevates them to a higher level and provides the colour and associations which an anonymous version of the same object would lack. Thus, one of my recent faves is REL34430, a tiny squashed celluloid doll accompanied by a note “God send you back to us”. God never did unfortunately – it was owned by Private Walter Davis of 2/18 Battalion who was captured by the Japanese at Singapore and died in captivity on 4 August 1945, eleven days before the end of the war, of dysentery. Brought up by his aunt and uncle, and obviously with close family ties, he tossed a message in a bottle overboard on his way to Singapore in February 1941 assuring them he was alright. The message  actually found its way to his family in 1945. This doll was amongst his effects – squashed, dissembled, but complete and obviously of huge importance to him in the camps in Malaya and Japan as a link back to the life he knew and which must have seemed a galaxy away by 1945. 

Without this story, the doll is merely a badly damaged piece of celluloid which no one is likely to give a second thought to.

George: 

My favourite work of art is Dobell’s “The Billy Boy”. There’s something innately human about the subject character that appeals to me.

My favourite object is probably the Beaufort bomber, because I spent so much time working on it, and became good friends with a number of Beaufort squadron veterans.

My favourite part of the Australian War Memorial is the Roll of Honour/Commemorative area, after hours. It’s so calm and peaceful there.

Robyn:

My favourite is the Bean collection. (Charles Edward Woodrow Bean was Australia’s official war correspondent during the First World War and was later appointed official historian for that conflict. The personal records created by Bean in the course of those appointments now form part of the official records series: AWM38 Official History, 1914–18 War: Records of C.E.W. Bean, Official Historian. The Memorial has digitised 286 volumes of diaries, notebooks, and folders kept by Bean during and after the war and used by him to write the official history of the First World War.)

Jennie:

The war diary for 1 Naval Bombardment (AWM52 4/10/1) because when I was researching my grandfather’s service I found a group photo of the unit taken in Morotai that included him.  ( While on active service, Australian Army headquarters, formations, and units are required to keep a unit war diary recording their daily activities.  The diary that Jennie names is one of these.  You can read more about the official diaries  over here. )

Emma:

I like the photos that Sean Hobbs bought back in 2007 – especially this one  because I think it really captures what it can be like to be working in a  place where the concept of a “set” bedtime is completely foreign. Being in a warzone means you are on high alert the whole time and the way in which Private Ormes is just grabbing rest where he can really shows that. I also am interested in the way in which he has put aside all of his “protection” – helmet, flak jacket.

Is there an overall index to colonial defence personnel pre 1900?

01 September 2010 by Liz Holcombe. 4 Comments
Collection,Family history

Today, 1 September, is Ask a Curator day on Twitter.  One of the first questions we had was this one:

Q: Is there an overall index to colonial defence personnel pre 1900 either for each state or together?

The answer is, not really, but there are some starting places.  Because there is too much information to put on Twitter, we have written a blog post to list these sources. 

There are a some books:

Donohoe, James Hugh, 1941-;    The British Army in Australia 1788-1870 : index of personnel.   J S Shaw North,  1996.

Donohoe, James Hugh, 1941-;     The British Army in Australia : index of personnel: v. 1. 1788-1820.  J. Donohoe,  1993.

Statham, Pamela, 1944-; Jenkins, Sarah.; Booker, John, 1941-; Cox and Co.;   A Colonial regiment : new sources relating to the New South Wales Corps, 1789-1810. P. Statham,  c1992.  (NOTES:  Bibliography: p. 387-389. Includes a biographical listing of every soldier who served in the NSW Corps from 1790 to 1800 (called the Register) as compiled from various sources by Sarah Jenkins, and a transcription of a book of accounts detailing the financial transactions of the. orps with its Army Agent in London from 1800 to 1805 (entitled the Ledger), introduced and transcribed by John Booker. ) 

(try this quick search in Trove for more)

 And there are some records:

AWM1 Pre-Federation and Commonwealth records  contains some nominal rolls. (This record is listed on the National Archives of Australia’s RecordSearch database, but you would need to come here to the Memorial to see it.)

National Archives of Australia Fact sheet 134 – Colonial defence personnel records held in Melbourne

The Memorial has nominal rolls for pre-1900 conflicts: 

We also have indices to 19th century NSW Corps service personnel in hardcopy in PR86/062: (though the link to reference images from that page is currently broken – we are working on it).

 Thanks to Jennie Norberry and Jessie Webb, who work in our Research Centre, for this information.

Nothing Like the Real Thing

12 July 2010 by Daniel McGlinchey. 1 Comment
Collection,Collection Highlights

Recently while cataloguing battlefield relics from Fromelles I came across an item I had not seen before, a German ersatz (substitute) sandbag made from paper. A search on the Memorial’s database shows that this was not the only item that used substitute material; there are many items in the collection, including an ersatz felt pickelhaube (spiked helmet) and a packet of ersatz ‘coffee’. As with France and Britain during the First World War, Germany brought in measures to save resources for the war effort, these shortages of material and food affected civilians and military alike.

         

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These boots are made for walking… too!

23 June 2010 by Dianne Rutherford. 1 Comment
Collection,From the collection,New acquisitions, Heraldry, Second World War

 

Late last year the Memorial received a pair of Second World War escape and evasion (E&E) boots as part of a donation. We already held two pairs of 1943 Pattern E&E boots in the collection which were designed so that if an airman baled out or crash landed over enemy territory, he could cut away the suede upper with a concealed knife. This would turn his boots into ‘civilian’ style shoes to help him evade capture by the Germans. Neither pair held by the Memorial had their original knife (they often get separated from the boots), so I hoped this new pair might.

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Observations of a Film and Sound accessions officer…

22 June 2010 by Kassandra Hobbs. 2 Comments
From the collection,New acquisitions

The many donations to the Australian War Memorial’s National Collection come in all shapes and sizes as well as conditions. Many collections are treasured family objects that are passed on through generations which represent stories of family members who were involved in Australia’s military commitments. Others are rescued from disposal centres or found in op shops and deposited to the Memorial from strangers who have no knowledge of the person the collection relates to. As interesting as these stories are, I often notice the varied packaging in which these objects, whether treasured or found, arrive at the Memorial.

In 2005, SBS Radio hosted a program called ‘Migrant Memories- Australian at War’ which includes interviews with children about their experiences growing up in a theatre of war. The interviews were donated to the Memorial by SBS Radio in a presentation to the Director in 2005. The CD’s came in specially designed presentation cases in an ornate box, pictured below.

Another example from the Memorial’s Sound Collection is a set of recorded letters which Peter Winter sent to and from his family whilst serving in South Vietnam with 7RAR as a 2^nd Lieutenant from February 1970 to March 1971. These sound tape reels were sent to the Memorial in boxes ranging from original sound tape reel boxes to Aspirin boxes. Sometimes, the packaging of items tells a whole story of its own and shows what was available at the time of sending objects home to the family.

A recent acquisition for our Vietnam recorded letter collection is from Bryan O’Donnell who donated a sound reel recorded letter which was sent to Australia during his time of service in a purpose made sound reel postage case. Bryan served with 5RAR as a Private in the Infantry Corps and was stationed in South Vietnam from May 1966 to May 1967. He tells his parents about his duties and that he is taking many slides to send home.

Whilst the sound recordings of the National Collection at the Memorial are important in commemorating the sacrifice of Australians who have died in war as well as the experiences of those who returned home to us, the packaging the recordings arrive at the Memorial sometimes have an interesting story too, like these three examples. As we move into the digital world, the sound section is continually receiving digitally recorded material making the original boxes increasingly rare and interesting object to receive.

A collection of First World War fundraising badges

11 June 2010 by Pen Roberts. 2 Comments
Collection,Collection Highlights,From the collection,New acquisitions

 

 “.. give what you can, give a little of your happiness, a little of your well-being and a lot of your soul.”

These words are an English translation of a 1916 French poster for “Journée Nationale des Orphelins” (National Orphans’ Day).

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Prisoners of the Japanese: A radio broadcast

28 May 2010 by Jennifer Selby. 3 Comments
Collection,New acquisitions

Today a wreathlaying ceremony will be held at the Sandakan Memorial in the Australian War Memorial’s Sculpture Garden to remember the prisoners of the Sandakan Death Marches of 1945. It seems appropriate to highlight a new Sound Collection acquisition which relates to another group of prisoners of the Japanese.

The Sound Section received a donation of a lacquer disc containing a recording of a radio broadcast made in September 1945 by David Druitt Nathan of the 5th Signals Corp. Captain Nathan was based in Saigon, and he speaks about the prisoners of the Thai-Burma railway in this recording.

As you can see from the above image, the disc is in a very fragile state, and we were not sure that we would be able to recover the audio from it. The core of the disc is metal and it has been coated with a lacquer compound into which the grooves of the recording have been cut. Over time, the lacquer surface has degraded and cracked as the metal core expanded and contracted with fluctuations in air temperature.

Luckily the recording starts about two centimetres in from the edge of the disc which is where the worst degradation of the surface has occurred, meaning our audio engineers were able to play and digitally preserve the complete recording.

Listen to the digitised audio of S04844

Our innovative audio engineers used a paintbrush to gently hold down the arm of the record player to ensure the needle did not skip out of the grooves on the disc when it hit a crack in the surface.

Now that this disc has been digitally preserved, the original disc will be safely stored and won’t be subjected to being played again.

Food from Heaven – 460 Squadron and Operation Manna, 1945

29 April 2010 by Dianne Rutherford. 14 Comments
Collection,From the collection, 460 Squadron RAAF, Aerial Operations, Anniversaries, Rations, Second World War

65 years ago a very special operation began to provide food to the starving civilians in the German occupied Netherlands.  During the harsh winter of 1944-1945 the Dutch population endured a major famine. Known as the ‘hungerwinter’ it was concentrated in the densely populated urban areas bounded by Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam and The Hague. By 1945 the daily ration had been reduced to 600 calories – a third of what it had been in 1941.

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