Blog category - New acquisitions
Recent acquisition: new Private Records relating to ‘G for George’
03 February 2010 by Alessandro Antonello.
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Collection,New acquisitions,News, 'G for George', Bomber Command, RAAF
The Australian War Memorial has recently received important documents relating to the Nuremberg bombing raid of 30-31 March 1944 and the iconic Lancaster bomber ‘G for George’. Through a generous donation, the navigation log and map made by William Albert Gourlay, navigator on board ‘G for George’ for the fateful raid, have been added to the Private Records collection (PR04522). These will complement our holdings relating to Bomber Command, and the Nuremberg raid in particular.
Radio propaganda and the kindness of strangers
15 January 2010 by Alessandro Antonello.
1 Comment
Collection,New acquisitions,News, Prisoners of war, Propaganda
In 1944, Yvonne Jobling was a schoolgirl studying shorthand. Every evening at her home in Geelong, Victoria, she practiced her shorthand by listening to the radio. On Friday, 17 March 1944, she happened to be listening to the short-wave broadcast of Radio Tokyo, and heard messages from Australian prisoners of war.
Jobling took the messages of five prisoners of war, and sent them to their families across Australia. A few days later families in Katoomba (NSW), Fairfield (NSW), Petersham (NSW), Adelaide (South Australia) and Sunshine (Victoria), received these welcome messages. Each family responded with deep gratitude. Mrs Barber of Petersham thanked Yvonne for her kind letter, and told her that ‘my heart has been aching for news of him’. Nancy of Adelaide, sister of Robert Louis Whitington (SX8121), wrote: ‘If you have a friend or brother a prisoner I sincerely trust you have received news of him ‘ere this.’
Recent acquisitions: nominal roll of 2/8th Battalion
07 January 2010 by Craig Berelle.
2 Comments
From the collection,New acquisitions,News
Official Records is pleased to announce the acquisition of original nominal roll cards of the 2/8th Australian Infantry Battalion into the National Collection. The nominal roll has been catalogued as AWM359 on the RecordSearch database.
Card of Lt-Col John Mitchell DSO*, first CO of the 2/8th Battalion
Provenance
Each card presents a record of service for an individual unit member. Their creation during the Second World War appears to have been an initiative of the battalion itself; i.e. they were not required to keep them, nor are they on official forms. Responsibility fell to each of the four company clerks of the battalion to create, manage and safeguard the cards. At the end of the war, the cards were transferred to Secretary of the 2/8th Association. The collection was managed as a membership database of the Association until they ceased activity in 2007. Later that year the cards were offered to the Memorial.
Content
AWM359 consists of index cards, one for each individual of the battalion, upon which detailed service information is entered. The top section identifies the soldier’s regimental number, name and rank. The middle section (‘Remarks’) records the date and nature of his service. Typically, these consisted of routing, embarkation, battles and operations, injury, evacuation, promotion and home leave. The bottom of the card lists next of kin (relationship and address), date of birth, religion, civil occupation, date of enlistment, date of joining battalion and previous unit or regiment (if applicable).
Arrangement
The nominal roll is arranged alphabetically, reflecting the way the cards were used by the association secretary. They were subdivided as follows:
- Main roll (Items 1-8)
- Soldiers as members of the battalion for only a short time (9-10)
- Officers (11)
- Members killed in action (12)
- Members taken prisoner of war (13)
In order to safeguard the handling of the collection, the cards have now been divided into manageable quantities and housed in archival quality containers.
These records form an additional valuable source of information useful to researchers of individual soldiers or those researching the battalion as a whole. They should be used in conjunction with the official service records held by the National Archives of Australia and the 2/8th unit war diaries held by the Memorial.
Proactive Collecting with HMAS Parramatta
04 November 2009 by Alexandra Orr.
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Collection,Collection Highlights,From the collection,New acquisitions,News,Personal Stories, HMAS Parramatta, Iraq., Operation CATALYST, Royal Australian Navy
HMAS Parramatta (author's collection)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…
The Swinden collection
29 September 2009 by Pen Roberts.
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Collection Highlights,From the collection,New acquisitions,News
Greg Swinden (PAIU 2008-157.03)
The Not So Great Escape
12 August 2009 by Alexandra Orr.
9 Comments
Collection,Collection Highlights,From the collection,New acquisitions,News,Personal Stories, Escape Maps, HMAS Sydney, HSK Kormoran, Prisoner of War, Theodore Detmers
On the 19th November 1941, Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney II was lost, with all hands, off the coast of Western Australia after engaging with the German raider HSK Kormoran. The discovery in March 2008 of the final resting place of the Sydney and the Kormoran attracted much attention. Understandably, there has been much discussion over the circumstances surrounding the loss of the Sydney; however the story of the Kormoran’s Commander, Theodor Anton Detmers, and that of his crew, continued long after the battle. Almost a week after the sinking of the Kormoran, Detmers was picked up in a lifeboat along with other crewmen. Brought to Australia as a prisoner of war, he and several of his countrymen were detained in Dhurringile Prison Camp, Victoria. It was not long before the Commander and his countrymen had formulated a plan to escape their fortress using a hand-drawn map of Australia’s east coast, now held by the Australian War Memorial.
Group portrait of German Officer prisoners of war (POWs) interned at Dhurringile. Detmers is in the front row, third from left. 030185_05The Cessation of Operation CATALYST
28 July 2009 by Alexandra Orr.
4 Comments
Collection,From the collection,New acquisitions,News, Ephemera, Iraq.
The 31st of July 2009 will mark the end of Operation CATALYST. CATALYST began on the 20th of March 2003 and defined the role of the Australian Defence Force in assisting multinational forces in the stabilization and security of Iraq. It also involved ADF support in the implementation of the country’s recovery programs.
Boatswains Mates, HMAS Parramatta, 2009The girl on the badge
03 June 2009 by Paul Taylor.
9 Comments
Collection,Family history,From the collection,New acquisitions,Personal Stories
A donation came to my desk in the days following Anzac Day that caught my attention. It was a maroon and white identification badge that featured the image of a young girl, her name, an I.D. number and the words, ‘C.S.I.R. Radiophysics Division’
Fortunately the depositor of the badge provided details of the original owner and I was soon speaking to Valerie Briggs who at 79 years of age still possessed all of the enthusiasm and intelligence that I saw in the eyes of the girl on the badge.
Valerie Briggs' identification badge. REL40008The Coronation Contingent of 1953
11 March 2009 by Annette Gaykema.
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Collection,From the collection,New acquisitions,Personal Stories, 1953, Coronation, Queen Elizabeth II, Spithead
![Cover of "Coronation Cruise of HMAS Sydney" (RC07761)](http://blog.awm.gov.au/awm/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/coronation-cruise-of-hmas-sydney-1953-cover-small.jpg "Cover of "Coronation Cruise of HMAS Sydney" (RC07761)")
Cover of "Coronation Cruise of HMAS Sydney" (RC07761)
After the death of King George VI in February 1952, planning for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth began. Tradition demanded a procession of all the Queen’s troops be present and so plans were put in place to form an Australian contingent. There were 250 official representatives from the armed forces sent to the festivities. These official delegates, along with their New Zealand counterparts formed the Coronation Contingent.
Happy Valentine’s Day from ‘The Love Controller’!
12 February 2009 by Alexandra Orr.
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Collection,Family history,From the collection,New acquisitions,News,Personal Stories, First World War, Postcard, sweetheart, Valentine's Day
As with other special occasions such as Christmas and birthdays, having to spend Valentine’s Day apart from loved ones would have been sad and distressing for many serving men and women, and for those at home eagerly awaiting the safe return of their sweethearts and friends.
Fortunately, there is little that can stand in the way of love and many people overcame distance and time to send messages of love and admiration, not only for Valentine’s Day, but throughout the course of wartime.
Postcards were an easy method of expressing such thoughts and feelings. Popular at any time, a variety of designs have been created since their invention in order to send that special message to that special someone.
Many Australian servicemen and women were able to take advantage of this market, particularly during the First World War, and some very interesting examples are held in the Australian War Memorial’s collection.
RC08136 Love Ration Card