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.
