Encyclopedia

Reports of Proceedings (AWM78)

Reports of Proceedings (ROP's) are the official record of activities of the Royal Australian Navy's (HMA) commands, vessels, shore (including training) establishments, administrative authorities and installations. They were (and are) submitted by commanding officers to Navy Office either monthly (eg in the case of ships) or quarterly (eg in the case of shore establishments). This applies in both wartime and peacetime. The types of information found in ROP's include: events of `historical significance', dates of arrival at and departure from places visited, details of ships in company, visits and official calls, outstanding incidents, details of operations and the state of the ship and its company. In some cases, especially in the early years of the World War II, reports were in the form of `war diaries'. Some ROP's include photographs.

The series includes reports of proceedings in five general naval agency groups: vessels, groups of vessels (e.g. squadrons, flotillas) and other units; commands (e.g. HMA Fleet); administrative authorities (e.g. Naval Officer in Charge, Flag Officer Commanding); shore establishments and miscellaneous. Within these groups the ROP's of individual agencies (ships, establishments, etc) are generally arranged alphabetically in items (files) accumulating ROP's in chronological order covering periods of one or more years. Some agencies' ROP's comprise several items. For most ships operating in the Second World War and the immediate postwar years there are, additionally, items containing duplicate copies of ROP's. Duplicate items are often incomplete.

A two number control system has been imposed on each item. The primary number ([1/...], [2/...], etc) represents the particular agency. The second ([.../1], [.../2], etc) is the item number of ROP's of that particular agency. For example, the ROP's of HMAS ACUTE are numbered [1/1] to [1/12], those of HMAS ADELAIDE [2/1] to [2/4] and so on.

In 1979-1981 elements of this series were temporarily transferred into the custody of Australian Archives, National Office and were registered as A4621. In 1981 they were returned from Australian Archives to the Department of Defence.

The series has been transferred to the Australian War Memorial from the Department of Defence periodically through several accessions since late 1981.