Two pairs of flying boots in the Memorial's collection that could be converted to civilian shoes.

Among the items held at the Memorial that were issued to air crew serving in Europe, are two pairs of very interesting 1943 Pattern escape boots. The boots were designed so that an airman downed in Europe could remove a small concealed knife and cut off the top section of the boot to reveal a civilian looking shoe.

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The sponson on the left hand side of the Mark IV tank was removed last year for inclusion in the Memorial’s exhibition, “1918, Advancing to Victory”.

The tank was relocated to the Memorial’s Large Technology Workshop in order to safely remove the sponson.  This provided an excellent opportunity for Conservation to undertake a preservation treatment of the tank which would include a full repaint, back to it’s original colour scheme.

One of the major components of the treatment was the removal of the tracks.  The primary objective of this exercise was to ensure that the area underneath the tracks was stable and to search for additional evidence of the tank’s history.  The dirtiest and most time consuming aspect of this was going to be cleaning the tracks of almost 100 years worth of “gunk”.  This had never been done, so as you can imagine, there was a lot of grease, grime, rubbish, dirt from the showgrounds it had visited, and dust from years of being on display.

But, first things first.  Registration had to get the tank up on stands before we could pull the tracks off.

Mark IV Tank

More on this treatment to follow…

What do a concert pianist, an Indian bandmaster and an Australian militia bandmaster have in common? Each of these individuals composed a march that would eventually be adopted as the regimental march of an Australian Imperial Force infantry battalion during the First World War. Many were popular songs of the period.

The 23^rd Battalion March was composed during the First World War by Miss Una Bourne at the request of Mrs Doris Carter. Una Bourne was a concert pianist and composer who toured as an associate artist with Dame Nellie Melba during her Australian visits. Una remained in England during the war years and performed for hospitals and the Red Cross.

23rd Battalion March

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When Leonard Walter Jackson of Neutral Bay joined the AIF on the 6th of August 1915, he must have been one of the youngest Australians ever to enlist in our military services. Using the assumed name Richard Walter Mayhew, and claiming to be an 18 year old orphan, young Leonard, who was born on 27th August 1901, was actually 13 years 11 months and 10 days old on the day he “signed up”.

Len’s older brother, Harry Melville Jackson, had enlisted in the AIF in January 1915 and another brother, Dudley Jackson, also joined up in August 1915. When their father Joseph, a veteran of the Sudan campaign of 1885, realised what his 13 year old son had done, he took the unusual step of enlisting himself, to follow his young tear-away to Egypt and keep a watchful eye on him. Joseph, not surprisingly, also had to lie about his age – he claimed to be 44 years and 11 months old, when he was actually 52!

When the eldest of the Jackson boys, Harry, died whilst a prisoner of the Germans in August 1916, from wounds received at Pozieres, Joseph admitted to the military authorities that he was overage for active service, and that his son Leonard was serving without his parents’ permission and was underage. (By this time, father and son had been serving side by side in the 55th Infantry Battalion since early 1916). To quote a letter written by Dudley Jackson MM in 1964, “[When my father] heard of my elder brother’s death…he decided in fairness to my mother to go back to Australia.” Both Joseph and Leonard were discharged, and returned to Australia aboard HMAT Ulysses in March 1917.

On 4th March 1918, ‘Richard Walter Mayhew’ again enlisted in the AIF, this time claiming his age was 21 years 3 months. A photograph of ‘Richard’ is held by the State Library of NSW.
Private records held in the Australian War Memorial’s collection which were used to uncover the story of Leonard Walter Jackson, include 1DRL/0379 and 3DRL/3846. Relevant service records can be found online through the National Archives of Australia.

In the last few days has come news of an important discovery for First World War historians (especially family historians), in the archives of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland.  British historian Peter Barton, commissioned by the Australian government to conduct further research into a mass grave at Fromelles in France, made the find.  The records consist of ‘card indexes and registers compiled between 1914 and 1918; during that period the Red Cross had acted as a go-between, logging, and passing on information to 30 countries drawn into the conflict.’

Details include the whereabouts and condition of men taken prisoner by the Germans and the location of field burials. Astonishingly it seems no one has ever conducted research into, or used these records until now.

Barton stated, “To a military historian, this was like finding Tutankhamen’s tomb and the terracotta warriors on the same day…”

Read the full article online (includes 3:27 min. video).

The Australian War Memorial has been assisting the Australian government with research into the Fromelles mass grave case since 2005, including more recently with Mr Barton’s research into the Red Cross records in Geneva.

While Red Cross records have not survived in some countries (such as the UK), those of the Australian Red Cross did, and are held here at the Australian War Memorial.  The unearthing of the corresponding records at this central archive in Geneva may prove a useful source for cross-checking the Australian records, or for conducting further research.

Australian Red Cross records held by the Memorial total 105 shelf metres, and are comprised of two main components:

• Records of the Australian Red Cross Prisoner of War Department.
• Records of the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau.

The Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau files have been digitised and are available to view online.  read on

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.

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Florence MacDowell in 1912 (from Private Records collection 2DRL/1138)

Florence MacDowell was born in the mid 1870s, the daughter of Swanston Hay MacDowell and Kathleen Champ. She trained as a nurse at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Victoria and the Queens Hospital in Adelaide, South Australia. She opened her own hospital called ‘Windarra’ at Toorak in Victoria, but later moved abroad, living mostly in Italy. She was staying on the Island of Elba in Tuscany when war broke out in 1914.

She made her way to England where she joined the British Red Cross. She worked as a Sister in their hospital at Vranatzka Banya in Serbia. In late 1915 and early 1916 the Serbian forces were overrun and retreated to Albania and Montenegro. Sister MacDowell evacuated from Serbia and eventually made her way back to England.

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Although outside main combat areas during the Second World War, India became an important region for the RAAF, and for many RAAF personnel attached to RAF units. In some RAF squadrons, ten percent of the crews were Australians, many of them transferred from training or bomber units based in England.

Most RAAF and RAF activity happened in the northern half of India. The Eastern division of Bomber Command used various bases in Bengal (now Bangladesh) for raids against Japanese forces in Burma and Thailand. RAF Ferry Command units kept busy delivering new planes. For troops and supplies, Bombay was a major port between Australia, the Middle East and Europe. Intelligence work, general administration and advanced hospital facilities were centred in New Delhi. At the end of the war, Bhopal in central India became the base area for a huge transit/demobilisation camp.

Agra, India. 6 February 1945. Outside the Taj Mahal, Leading Aircraftman (LAC) J. A. (Snow) Wardlaw, RAAF of Hornsby, NSW (left) and LAC H. K. (Johnno) Johnston, RAAF of Broken Hill, NSW, sit for Captain W. A. (Bill) Dargie, Australian Official War Artist. SEA0139

The Memorial recently acquired a mysterious letter. It is beautifully written and decorated, but we don’t know much about it. It seems it was written by a French woman to her sweetheart, and we assume he was Australian, as the letter ended up in Australia. We do not know who they were, but we do know that the letter was written on 25 August 1918 and was sent from Saint-Sulpice-les-Feuilles in France. The writer, Martha (or perhaps Marthe) Gylbert, obviously missed her soldier, and went to a great deal of trouble to decorate the letter. It seems that the two were engaged to be married, as the letter ends with the words (almost obscured with kisses) “wife to be very soon”.

First page of a letter written in France in 1918. PR03970

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

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