Memorial Articles
The Memorial boasts a staff of subject specialists in all aspects of military history and museum practice.
Our articles and our Encyclopedia allow subject specialists to share their knowledge on Australian military history.
They also provide a way for us to take a closer look at the people and the stories behind the history and our museum collection.

Christmas wishes from Gallipoli
Driver Percy Gordon Hendy was serving on Gallipoli in November 1915 when he sent Christmas wishes to his family back home in Melbourne, written on a hard tack biscuit.

'Always ... in my thoughts'
On 25 December 1916, Thomas Charles Doe sent Christmas wishes to his family in Melbourne in a handwritten note which he sealed inside a bottle and threw overboard as his troopship sailed for the war in Europe.

'Everyone was so shocked'
Peter Wilkinson OAM was six years old when the telegram came. His father, Lieutenant Commander Alexander Wilkinson, had been killed on board HMAS Sydney during the Second World War.

'By all the rules, it should have ... blown the whole lot out of the sky'
Len Davies was a 19-year-old rear gunner when he was ordered to bale out of his burning Lancaster bomber during a night raid over Germany.

Pearl Harbor
Just after dawn on 7 December 1941 Japanese planes launched from aircraft carriers struck the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Their primary target was the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Funnel Insignia
Perhaps the first use of a kangaroo image on a warship occurred in 1852 with the launch of the Royal Navy’s HMS Kangaroo.

For duty and honour: remembering the Howell-Price brothers
Reverend John Howell-Price and his wife Isabel would farewell five of their six sons off to serve during the First World War. Only two would make it home.

'He always thought of others first'
George Wheatley will never forget the day his father died. It was 13 November 1965, and his father, Kevin “Dasher” Wheatley VC, was on a search and destroy mission with a platoon of South Vietnamese soldiers in Vietnam.

'It means everything to me'
Ada Rayner was nine years old when she watched her father, Percy Larkin, march at the opening of the Australian War Memorial 80 years ago.