Pair of 'AIF Official Photographer' shoulder slides: Staff Sergeant Ronald Leslie Stewart, 7 Military History Field Team

Pair of khaki cotton drill shoulder slides, each bearing the embroidered title 'OFFICIAL *AIF* PHOTOGRAPHER'.

Shoulder slides worn by Ronald Leslie Stewart, born at Drummoyne, Sydney on 26 October 1920 and living at Bondi, NSW. A press photographer by training, he enlisted at Waverley Park on 14 May 1941 and was assigned to the Australian Army Service Corps (AASC), CMF under service number N218070. By November he was acting as a corporal and a driver with 1 Divisional Supply Company. On 13 July 1942 Stewart was transferred to the AIF under service number NX11301 and assigned to the 1st Division’s 14 Australian Company, ASC and 3 months later was posted to Motor Transport Training Depot at Cowra; in October he attended an instructor’s course in driving and maintenance and in November 1942 he was appointed acting sergeant instructor and staff sergeant at the beginning of January 1943.

Stewart was admitted to hospital with second degree burns to his face and legs in January 1944. The army would have known of his prewar training as a photographer but the first major evidence of his photography was when he travelled to Victoria to record the German and Italian internees and prisoners of war (and some of the Australian guards) of Murchison, Dhurringile and Tatura Camps in March 1945.

On 7 May 1945, he embarked for New Guinea and, a month later left Morotai on the Landing Ship Transport LST 777 bound for Balikpapan, where he photographed the landings and the advance into the interior, including the taking of Manggar airstrip. On the 20 July he severed the tendon on one of his fingers and was evacuated to Morotai, not re-joining Military History Field Team until mid August. For the next five months he covered the surrender at Morotai, the Dutch civilian internment camps at Manado (to which he made three trips) and the arrest of Japanese War Criminals.

These shoulder slides were worn by Ronald Stewart in his capacity as a member of the 7 Military History Field Team. He was a member of this team from July 1945, when he deployed to Balikpapan with Mick O’Halloran and Reg Barrett (cinematographers); Doug Watson and Frank Hodgkinson (war artists); Norm Stuckey and Bob Donaldson (stills photographers).

Ronald's older brother, NX50551 Corporal Richard Dalley Stewart, served with the 2/19th Battalion and was captured by the Japanese at Singapore. He survived the war and his post-war signed affidavit regarding his treatment by the Japanese (dated 1947) survives at Australian Archives. He was initially incarcerated in Changi, but in late November 1942, he was moved to Kobe, Japan, where he was forced to work in the shipyards. In 1945, he was moved to Fukuoka camp, where the majority of prisoners worked in the coal mines, but Stewart, who was suffering a nervous disorder, was put on light duties. He witnessed and suffered many acts of violence and deprivation.

Ronald Leslie Stewart was discharged on 11 April 1946 and died in 1973; Richard Dalley Stewart was discharged on 8 February 1946 and died in 2008.