Official History, 1939-45 War: Records of Gavin Long, General Editor

Planning of an official history of the Second World War was initiated by C.E.W. Bean in a memorandum to the War Cabinet in 1941 and recommending Gavin Long as general editor, a proposal initially rejected by Cabinet as "premature". The following year, the War Cabinet asked the Board of Management of the Australian War Memorial to recommend an editor for such a project and Bean's again suggested Long. Long and Bean were personal acquaintances, having exchanged correspondence in the early 1930's regarding Bean’s work. A personal message from Bean to the Prime Minister, John Curtin, late in 1942 finally led to Long's appointment on 30 January 1943 by the Minister for the Interior, J.S. Collings, as "General Editor and Editor of Records". Long was directed to "prepare, in consultation with the Australian War Memorial and the Departments concerned, a provisional scheme for a history" and to recommend writers. His initial contract appointed him for five years. It was subsequently renewed in 1948, and again in 1950 and 1955.

It is worth noting the difference between the "official war historian" role pioneered by Bean and that of "General Editor of the History of Australia in the War of 1939-45", the title chosen by Long himself after the war. The title "General Editor" was chosen to indicate that this war history would be written by a team of writers (which might or might not include Long himself), in the hope of reducing the time needed to complete it. This difference is important because it helps to explain the diverse content of the Long papers. It also highlights Long’s personal contribution of managing a large group of writers, administering a major historical project and writing three volumes of the series himself.

The achievement was all the greater given the many problems he encountered in the course of his dual career as editor and historian. Even Long's appointment relatively early in the war was something of a disadvantage. He was required to manage the project and argue for resources and support from government, bureaucracy and service chiefs while they were preoccupied with the immediate demands of the war. This in turn limited his opportunities to personally visit and witness operations in theatres dispersed around the globe.

Long's first problem was to construct a scheme for a history which was bound to be both broader and more complex than Bean's. The provisional plan Long devised was for a series of fourteen volumes: one on "general defence policy", four on the Army, two on the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), three on the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), two on the home front, one on war industries and one on primary industries. The War Cabinet approved this scheme in July, except the proposed volume on general defence policy, which was abandoned. Modifications were made to the proposed structure of the series over the next seven years, with the final form in which it was to be published not established until 1950.

Administratively, the official history depended on collaborative relationships between Long (as the General Editor), the Memorial, the Army's Military History Section and the Department of the Interior. It was decided that the General Editor would be responsible directly to the Minister for the Interior but that the Memorial would be charged with the administration of Long's war history section.

This complex tripartite Memorial/Military History Section/ General Editor relationship encountered many difficulties. These were largely the result of the fact that the three shared responsibility for the collection and organization of the documentary evidence of the war or, at least, the evidence relating to command and army formations. The Military History Section was initially responsible for collecting operational records such as war diaries, the General Editor for personal records, and the Memorial for printed material, donated records and, eventually, the permanent custody of all records. This inevitably led to some problems, due to differing priorities - the Military History Section's first priority was to collect operational records and ensure they were secured. However, due to staff shortages, the sorting of records would have to wait until qualified ex-service people were available, and this impacted the efforts of Long’s team. The writers of the naval and air force volumes fared better as naval and air force historical sections were set up with Long's help and they directly supported the writers.

Long encountered numerous other challenges in the course of this task, including:

Lack of direct control over his team and the records they collected as the team was not collocated with him at the Memorial
Delays in recruiting volume authors. A number of people he recommended declined offers and approval of his recommendations by the Government's War History Committee was slow in coming. Of the fourteen recommendations he made in September 1944 only seven (Long himself, Gill, Maughan, Gillison, Butlin, Hasluck and Walker) eventually took up their appointments.
Delays in authors commencing work, often due to their obligations to current employers. For example, Hasluck was delayed at the Department of External Affairs, and McCarthy at the University Commission. Maughan did not start work until 1955.
Personal factors also affected the project. Ill health forced Walker to resign in 1956 before completing his last volume; it was eventually finished by a team of service people and was not published until 1961, three years after his death. Hasluck's two volumes, like Long's first two, had been originally planned as one, but the manuscript was split in May 1950. Volume 2 was expected to be finished by the end of 1951, but Hasluck was elected to Federal Parliament and Cabinet in May 1951 and he was only able to finish it after he retired in 1969.
The first volumes of the series, "Australia in the War of 1939-45", (Long's and Walker's first volumes), were published in 1952. Others were published at intervals until the last (Butlin's and Schedvin's) appeared in 1977.

Content
The content of the series comprises the records used or compiled by Gavin Long during his appointment as General Editor, Official History 1939-45 War. It is organised into sub-series based on the nature of the material (diaries, notebooks, personal records etc), as described below.

1. Diaries

There are fourteen diaries, of which twelve were compiled while Long was general editor and two, numbers 8 and 9, predate his appointment and describe his tour of Northern Australia and PNG as a war correspondent. As a matter of convenience, Long had these two diaries incorporated into the series and indexed under the same system. The diaries are generally in the form of small ring binders into which daily entries, either manuscript or typescript, were slotted as they were written.

Numbers 1-9 include notes on interviews, on military or social aspects of the war and on developments in the official history project.
Numbers 10 and 11 contain relatively few interview notes and are mainly concerned with the task of getting the history and its supporting programs under way.
Numbers 12 and 13 essentially document how Long adjusted his personal research and writing programme, not only to technical constraints and his own personal circumstances, but to those of the other writers.
Number 14 is a day-by-day aide-memoire for each day in 1959. According to A.J. Sweeting, in a note attached to Long's notebooks (see below), Long wanted to record what "he had observed or learned during the day". The diaries also "contain an occasional short summary of the war situation as seen by a contemporary".
2. Notebooks

This sub-series comprises 120 journalist's notebooks, originally in two groups. The first, controlled by the original numbering system 1-112, were compiled by Long. The second consists of eight more notebooks, four also compiled by Long, and the other four by A.G. Fenton, an army officer assigned to work for him on "Kanga Force" and 8 Military District. Unfortunately Fenton was killed in an air accident soon after starting work. This second group were originally numbered "201A", "202B", etc but, for convenience, they have been renumbered 113-120. The notebooks record interviews Long conducted with individuals, mainly Army personnel, and are generally in the form either of narrative accounts in the first person or notes of answers to questions. They describe operations, battle situations and so on. Sweeting noted that Long's aim was "to fill in gaps in the official records, particularly of the early campaigns" and that all the writers of the army volumes used them as source material. A list of the abbreviations of common words, though not accepted military abbreviations, can be found in the preface to item.

3. "Personal Records" Files

This sub-series comprises correspondence, narrative accounts, comments on Long's drafts, and press cuttings sent to Long by individuals, mostly Army personnel. Some individuals provided multiple items. Long used this material as primary historical evidence. The subseries is arranged alphabetically by name of individual and numbered accordingly. References to these individuals in the diary and notebook subseries have been noted in the list. Entries in round brackets show the corresponding diary number - "D1", "D2" … - or notebook number - "N1", "N2" …. Reference to the diaries or notebooks relate to the same person as the "personal record" or to a mentioned person. Where the reference is to an entry of the same person, the number in brackets is italicized. Thus, for instance, references to Lt-Col A.W. Sheppard in the diaries and notebooks - "D2, D5, `D8', N2, `N3', N5, N27, N69)" - are to be found in the diary and notebook entries of both Sheppard himself and others.] Reference to a person in the "personal record" dossier of another is also noted in the round brackets. [For example, the entry for Lt Col C.G.W. Anderson - "(D5, N109, P R Reynolds)" - signifies that there is a reference to Anderson in Reynolds's file.

4. Circulars to Writers

This sub-series consists of 34 circulars by Long to writers ranged in subject from minor administrative matters to background reference material, information about war history projects in other countries, guidance regarding style and presentation, research techniques and the philosophy of history. Two memoranda concerning the proposed one-volume "concise" history have been added to the subseries and are numbered 35 and 36.

5. Extract Books

This sub-series consists of bound or loose-leaf notebooks in which Long accumulated notes and extracts from source material. They have been generally grouped by theatre of war (Middle East, SWPA [South West Pacific Area], Far East and "General") and, within each grouping, by specific operational area. Most are in the form of either extract books styled after Bean, who marshalled evidence of operations using a "map system", or simply notes on the campaign situation in succeeding days. Others contain notes, not arranged systematically, on specific subjects or periods and may deal with more than one subject.

6. Despatches of British Commanders

This sub-series comprises a collection of supplements to the London Gazette containing reports by British navy, army and air force commanders of campaigns and operations, some well after the event. Long collected only the supplements of potential value for research into Australian participation in the war. They are arranged in three groups: Army and Air ("Western and Middle East"); Army and Air ("Far East"); and Navy (all theatres). The items were originally serialized, but because there are large gaps, a new single running number system has been imposed. The subseries includes an unpublished despatch by Lord Tedder, Marshal of the Royal Air Force, concerning air operations in the Mediterranean between 1941 and 1943.

7. Drafts

This sub-series includes Long's manuscript and/or typescript drafts of the three volumes he wrote for the army series of the official history and of the one-volume summary "The Six Years War". Long's first plan was to publish what eventually appeared separately as Volume 1 ("To Benghazi") and Volume 2 ("Greece, Crete and Syria") as a single volume, and the manuscript drafts of all chapters appear in this subseries as chapters "1-38". The first twelve now make up Volume 1, the original chapters 13-38 forming Volume 2. The item with a typescript draft of chapter "17" includes Department of Defence answers to questions Long had put to Prime Minister Menzies concerning the Syrian campaign. Two bundles of research notes can be found among the drafts of Volume 7 ("The Final Campaigns").

Long suggested to Ben Chifley in April 1943 that a "concise one-volume history of Australia's part in the present war be published as soon as possible after the war", but publication was deferred until 1972, after most of the main series had appeared. Long, in fact, worked on this book throughout the period of the official history project and papers in this part of the subseries which document its production range virtually from 1945 to 1967, with some annotations dated 1972. The 160 items include numerous manuscript and typescript drafts of chapters.

8. Press Cuttings, Reviews of Volumes of the Official History, etc

This sub-series comprises 24 volumes of cuttings, correspondence and notes. The first includes congratulatory messages on the publication of Long's Volume 1, including correspondence from Bean. Folder 24 includes material discussing the ruling that T.W. Mitchell, originally contracted to write the volume covering the 8th Division in Malaya, could not continue as a writer after entering politics in Victoria.

9. Correspondence

This subseries comprises correspondence predating the official history project concerning the problems of AIF officers returning from the Middle East; letters of congratulation to Long, (and his replies) on his appointment as General Editor; and correspondence with writers concerning editorial matters and problems encountered. A progress report on the war history dated June 1949 and a photograph of Long with other writers are included.

10. Working Files and Administrative Records

This sub-series comprises miscellaneous records documenting Long's work as editor, the collection and control of source material, and the administration of the war history section. It includes control records (indexes, lists, etc), bibliographical information, drafts from writers annotated by Long and housekeeping records (concerning appointments, contracts, salaries, progress of the project, etc).

11. Source Material and Notes

This sub-series comprises miscellaneous copies of original source material, compiled sources (lists, chronologies, narrative accounts, biographical information, etc), notes and records of interview. Two notable items concern AIF slang and verse. Some items relate to the First World War or to the years immediately before and after the Second World War.

12. Other War History Projects

This sub-series includes notes and documents related to the war history projects of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and South Africa and Long's communications with them.

13. Non-Official History and Miscellaneous Records

This subseries is in two parts. Part 1 includes personal records of Long not directly related to the official history, with articles and papers, notes, correspondence and records of boards and committees of which he was a member. Part 2 includes miscellaneous non-official history records and source material collected by Long, with material and drafts for non-official manuscripts being written by Long such as his study of MacArthur as a military commander.

• AWM67 3 - "Personal Records" files