Information sheets

Researching Australian military service: Indonesian Confrontation, 1963–66

Overview of the conflict
Nominal rolls
Personal service records
Those who died while serving
Where they served
Medals and awards
Where to look for photographs

Overview of the conflict

Australian military history overview: Indonesian Confrontation 1963–66

Nominal rolls

Neil C. Smith, Nothing short of war: with the Australian Army in Borneo 1962–66 (Gardenvale, Vic: Mostly Unsung Military History Research and Publications, 1999): pp. 109–81
Arranged alphabetically, it includes initials rank and units in which they served.

4RAR

Our secret war: the 4th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, defending against Indonesian Confrontation 1965–1967 (McCrae, Vic: Slouch Hat Publications, 2000): pp 200–07.
Alphabetical list of 4RAR members serving in Sarawak , April–September 1966, gives surname, initials, service number, sub-unit, awards and whether they had also served in Vietnam .

Special Air Service

David Horner, SAS: phantoms of the jungle, a history of the Australian Special Air Service (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989): pp. 481-87.
Nominal roll that gives full name, rank and service number, squadron and previous service in Malaya, Vietnam, Korea, etc.

Personal service records

Service records of those who served with Australian forces are held by the National Archives of Australia. You can apply to the National Archives for copies of personal service records.

Those who died while serving

The Roll of Honour records the names of service men and women who died during or as a result of service with Australian military forces. The Roll of Honour introduction provides detailed information about Roll of Honour eligibility.

Where they served

Army

War diaries were kept by the commanding officer of the unit to record their daily activities and location. The war diaries are held in the Official records series AWM95, which have been digitised and are available for viewing on the Memorial's website.

Royal Australian Navy

Reports of Proceedings (ROPs), known earlier as “Letters of Proceedings”, are summaries of a ship’s or shore base’s activities. The reports were submitted by commanding officers to the Chief of Naval Staff. To identify relevant ROPs in the Memorial’s collection search the RecordSearch database using the name of the ship as your keywords and AWM78 in the reference numbers field. These records are available for viewing in the Research Centre.

Official history

Official histories are a detailed chronological record of all services and all theatres of conflict.

Peter Dennis and Jeffery Grey, Emergency and Confrontation: Australian military operations in Malaya and Borneo 1950-1966 (Allen and Unwin and the Australian War Memorial: Sydney, 1996)
Volume 5 of The Official History of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948-1975 deals with Australian military involvement of all three services in the Malayan Emergency and Indonesian/Malaysian Confrontation.

For further information refer to our information sheet Researching the history of a unit.

Medals and awards

Where to look for photographs

  • Collections Search gives access to images of photographs held by the Memorial.
  • Picture Australia has images held by a range of major Australian libraries, archives and other cultural institutions.
  • State libraries and archives often have photographs in their collections. For contact details, see our information sheet Addresses.

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