Australian Army unit war diaries, Korea

Accession Number AWM85
Collection type Official Record
Object type Official Record
Conflict Korea, 1950-1953
Copyright

Item copyright: Commonwealth of Australia copyright

Copying Provisions Copyright restrictions apply. Only personal, non-commercial, research and study use permitted. Permission of copyright holder required for any commercial use and/or reproduction.
Description

This series comprises the War Diaries created by the units of the Australian Army during the Korean War. While on active service, Army headquarters, formations and units were required to keep unit war diaries recording their daily activities. These diaries were arranged by unit and covered the period of one month at a time.

The content of the war diaries generally consist of war diary or intelligence summary sheets located at the beginning of each diary which record the date of each entry, the unit's location, a summary of events and any remarks or references to appendices. The principal types of records usually included in appendices are Routine Orders, field returns, administrative and training instructions, operations orders and instructions, intelligence reports, patrol orders and programmes, monthly reports (medical officer's, quartermaster's, etc), messages and signals, and maps, sketches and traces.

The content of individual war diaries depends on the unit concerned and their functions and daily activities. Overall, however, the main factor controlling the contents and quality of contents of a particular diary remains the skill, dedication, and enthusiasm of the officer who was in charge of compiling it.

More information can be found in the introduction to the series.

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