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…

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The 31^st of July 2009 will mark the end of Operation CATALYST. CATALYST began on the 20^th 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, 2009

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