In the Research Centre, we receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to know how and where their relatives died in the First World War. Finding out this information can be a difficult task. Quite often families know no more than that their relative died on a particular date in a particular country, and they’d like to know if we can help them narrow that down.

With the advent of the Internet and the progress of digitisation programs at the Memorial and the National Archives of Australia, more and more material relating to the First World War is becoming available online. First World War service records, an increasing number of unit war diaries, and the Official History edited by Charles Bean are now available to anyone with an Internet connection.

With such a variety of sources, it can be hard to know quite where to start. Say, for example, that we wanted to find out about the death of Private Clifford Davies Williams, who died on 1 October, 1917. What would our first step be?

The Memorial’s Roll of Honour provides a good starting point. It typically gives information about where an individual was from, when they were killed, what unit they served with, and where they are buried or commemorated. It also shows where the individual is commemorated on the Memorial’s physical Roll of Honour, for those who wish to visit the Memorial to pay their respects.

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Over the past few months the Memorial has been increasing its efforts to acquire photographs of men and women who died on active service whilst serving in the Australian military forces. 102,000 names appear on the Roll of Honour, and where possible, the Memorial has been trying to put faces to names by acquiring photographs of these men and women to link to their online Roll of Honour records. Over the past three months, the Memorial’s Photographs section has received over 2,000 public inquiries regarding the Roll of Honour project, resulting in the offer of 1,800 photographs.

Recent acquisitions over the past few months have uncovered some incredible stories of Australians during wartime, and tell the true nature of loss and sacrifice througout Australia’s military history. Many recent donations have been photographs of those who died on active service during the First World War. Either forgotten over the years, not known at the time, or far too distressing to inform bereaving loved ones, revealing these personal stories involves a thorough examination of the historical record, and goes far to extend the commemoration of the fallen to beyond the bare minimum record of a rank, name, unit and date of death. read on

Roll of Honour bronze panel at the Australian War Memorial

Tens of thousands of British and Empire troops remain ‘missing’ in France and Belgium. The bodies of many of them were located after the war and placed in war cemeteries where they lie in nameless graves. The remains of others have never been found. The Menin Gate at Ypres records the names of 55,000 of those killed in Belgium who have no known grave and a similar number are recorded elsewhere; for example an additional 35,000 of the names are on the Tyne Cot Memorial, which forms the northeastern boundary wall surrounding the Tyne Cot Cemetery.

Australia’s 6,000 missing in Belgium are recorded on the Menin Gate.

Australia’s war dead from all conflicts are recorded on the Australian War Memorial’s Roll of Honour. This takes the form of bronze panels in the cloisters surrounding the Memorial’s Commemorative Area and the online Roll of Honour database, which is accessible via the Memorial’s website.

Click for a virtual tour of the Memorial’s Commemorative Area including the Roll of Honour