Love that body, what’s the ARN?

19 September 2008 by Ann Penhallow. No comments
Collection

The Research Centre receives regular telephone calls and emails from military vehicle enthusiasts – restorers and collectors - from all over Australia.  Occasionally they make it into the Research Centre at the Memorial, like the proud Jeep owner I met this week. 

Most collectors initially want to know their vehicle’s Army Registration Number (ARN), in order to apply the correct markings to their vehicle.  This is where the hard work (or fun, depending on your point of view!) begins. 

ARNs are arranged sequentially in 27 Army Vehicle Registration Books (series AWM126), covering all vehicles used by the Australian Army from pre-WW1 to 1990, after which time the Army has maintained electronic records. The Army Registration Books are currently housed at the Memorial and can be requested for viewing in the Research Centre.

Next to each ARN is the vehicle’s entry, including its make and type, engine number, chassis or serial number, year and physical description.  Details of the vehicle’s use and eventual disposal is usually recorded on the corresponding line of the opposite page, or squashed into the same ARN line.  Always handwritten and with frequent abbreviations, it can be a task to decipher some entries!

Presently, the only way to locate an unknown ARN is to dedicate many eye-straining hours to searching each book, line by line.  Very occasionally, like vehicles are grouped together and this can sometimes help.  For example, if you know the ARN of the Haflinger at Bandiana Army Museum, then possibly the Army’s other 50-odd Haflingers will have ARNs very close in the sequence.  However, from experience, I know this method cannot be relied upon!

If you are lucky enough to own an ex-Australian Army Land Rover, the Registry of Ex-Military Land Rovers http://www.remlr.com/, has done the hard work for you and have  transcribed the Land Rover and Trailer ARN entries from AWM126.  Other individuals, clubs and associations may also build their own lists of ARNs for their particular vehicles of interest, but you need the time and the patience to discover who…

A description of AWM126 Army Vehicle Registration Books is located on the National Archives of Australia RecordSearch database at http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/SeriesDetail.asp?M=0&B=AWM126.  The Books can be requested for viewing in the Memorial Research Centre at any time.  Photocopying is not permitted due to the physical state of the Books, but photography is permitted.

The Memorial’s photographs collection can be searched online for military vehicles at: http://www.awm.gov.au/database/collection.asp.  Warning: the search term Jeep will return 1619 photographs….

Can’t see the tree for the wood… part II : The Baumbeobachter

18 September 2008 by Di Rutherford. 5 Comments
Exhibitions, From the collection, News,

An example of an observation post disguised as a tree. This one was used by Australian troops during the Battle of Messines on 7 June 1917 at Hill 63.An example of an observation post disguised as a tree. This one was used by Australian troops during the Battle of Messines on 7 June 1917 at Hill 63. 

Since first blogging about the Memorial’s German observation post camouflage tree  (called a “Baumbeobachter” by the Germans, literally meaning “tree observer”) I have had a chance to take some photographs of parts of the tree I thought I would share, especially as some features may not be visible once the tree is fully assembled and on display. read on

Making a Silk Postcard

03 September 2008 by Annette Gaykema. 1 Comment
Collection, From the collection, ,

Embroidered silk postcards were first made in 1900 with popularity peaking during the First World War. Cards were generally embroidered on strips of silk mesh by French women. They were then cut and mounted on postcards.

Since the completion of a project to get the silk postcard images (all 700+) onto the database, I have been interested in seeing how well the process could be replicated. Having some experience in cross-stitch, I decided to have a go at creating a pattern from the database image, embroidering it and mounting it. First step was deciding on a design (feeling quite patriotic after the Olympics I chose one of the Australian ones):

 Original Silk PostcardOriginal Silk Postcard SC00186

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To my dear father

01 September 2008 by Theresa Cronk. No comments
Collection,

Embroidered silk postcard from the First World War. Embroidered silk postcard from the First World War. RC06035

The above silk postcard could well be considered a forerunner of greeting cards now available for Father’s Day. The simple greeting conveys appropriate sentiments for Father’s Day today, although it was sent home from the trenches of France and Belgium during the First World War. read on

Going out for a spell…

21 August 2008 by Ann Penhallow. No comments
Family history, Personal Stories, ,

What does a twenty-three year old wag of a soldier say in his defence, when facing yet another court martial for going AWOL during the First World War? 

If you’re Private Albert Stipek, the words come easily: “I met some friends and went away with them. I had no idea the Battalion was going to the Line. I thought it was going out for a spell”.  Nevertheless, he had absented himself from the 51st Battalion for nearly two months.

We can only imagine his tongue was firmly in his cheek.  By the date of this hearing, 2 July 1918, Stipek had survived the first landing at Gallipoli with the 12th Battalion, and the battles at Mouquet Farm, Dernancourt and Villers-Bretonneux with the 52nd Battalion.

He had also been fined for being drunk on 2pm parade, gone missing in action for five days following the battle at Mouquet Farm, was admitted to hospital on three different occasions, court martialled for going AWOL and missing his return to the front line in France, and arrested for escaping confinement. 

Following this latest court martial, Private Stipek once again escaped confinement and went AWOL for eight months.  A series of charges, detentions and confinements followed, until he was returned to Australia in March 1920 to serve the rest of his final sentence.  Although his sister was notified of his return, his extended family, in due course, came to believe he died in the War. 

Private Stipek’s incredible service record has been digitised and is available for viewing on the National Archives of Australia RecordSearch database.   Four court martial records are also on RecordSearch, but have yet to be digitised.

There is no doubt Private Stipek was a colourful character, but perhaps it was the trauma of fighting for his life in several major battles which expressed itself as the desperate need to escape military service.

Further information:
First World War Australian Army War Diaries
First World War Official Histories

With thanks to Annette Gaykema for her research and interest in Private Stipek.

Recent acquisitions: To points unknown…

20 August 2008 by Mel Hunt. No comments
Collection, From the collection, New acquisitions,


‘To points unknown: the First Al Muthanna Task Group’ is a striking example of the type of modern unit history which is being produced by Australian soldiers. It is a largely pictorial record of the tour to Iraq by the 1st Al Muthanna Task Group from April to November 2005. Lt. Col. Roger Noble, Commanding Officer of Al Muthanna Task group One, notes in the introduction that the aim was to ‘record our tour as it was, with an emphasis on the human, lighter, everyday side of the tour’.

The Memorial’s Research Centre holds an extensive collection of published ‘unit histories’ across the range of conflicts in which Australians have served from the South African War to current peacekeeping operations.

read on

Tourist souvenirs - Crested China and the First World War

20 August 2008 by Di Rutherford. 2 Comments
Collection, From the collection,

Most people like to bring home a souvenir from their travels and soldiers in the First World War were no exceptions. The First World War led to great movements of people across the world, but especially through Europe. Many of these people ended up in Great Britain at one time or another. Despite difficulties in wartime, British companies still managed to produce a myriad of souvenirs for the visitors as reminders of their time in Britain, or as a gift for a loved one.

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Charging Home

19 August 2008 by Ann Penhallow. 3 Comments
Collection, From the collection, , ,

This week the Research Centre received a call from a fan of Sandy, Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges’ favourite charger.  November this year sees the 90th anniversary of Sandy’s return to Australia, after a tour of duty which included the coast of Gallipoli, Egypt and France.  Sandy’s fan wished to confirm the information the Research Centre has about this much-loved animal in preparation for a ceremony to mark the anniversary.

Although General Bridges had the use of three horses, Sandy was believed to be his favourite.  This impressive portrait in the Memorial’s photographs collection clearly acknowledges the General’s feelings, as he allows his charger’s head to obscure his own!

 Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges holding the bridle of his favourite charger, Sandy. P05290.001Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges holding the bridle of his favourite charger, Sandy. P05290.001

General Bridges died in May 1915 from a wound sustained at Gallipoli and Sandy, who was presumed to be offshore at the time, was eventually shipped back to Egypt.  Nearly a year later he was transported to France.

In October 1917, the Minister for Defence, Senator George Pearce, called for Sandy to be returned to Australia.  Copies of the ensuing letters, cables, minutes and memos between the organising parties comprise an official record held in the Memorial archives.  This record AWM13 7026/2/31 can be viewed in the Memorial’s Research Centre Reading Room.

Sandy sailed from Liverpool in September 1918, arriving in Melbourne in November.  As the official record says, he was “pensioned off”, or turned out to graze at the Central Remount Depot in Maribyrnong.  Blind and unwell, Sandy was put down in 1923.

Sandy’s claim to fame is not just as the favourite horse of General Bridges, but that, of 136,000 Australian horses sent away to the First World War, Sandy was the sole horse brought back.

Information resources about Sandy:

Australian War Memorial Encyclopedia

Australian War Memorial Collection Databases

Coulthard-Clark, Chris “One came home” Wartime: official magazine of the Australian War Memorial 19 (2002):37-39.

National Archives of Australia Recordsearch
AWM13 7026/2/31

Over the Front: the Great War in the air

19 August 2008 by Amanda Rebbeck. 3 Comments
Aircraft 1914 - 1918, Exhibitions, News

A new permanent exhibition, Over the Front: the Great War in the air, will open on 28 November 2008 at the eastern end of ANZAC Hall. The story of military flight and aerial combat during the First World War will be brought to life through the Memorial’s collection of five original and extraordinary aircraft and an exciting sound-and-light show.

Australians played a distinct part in aviation’s remarkable advances during the war. Four squadrons of the Australian Flying Corps flew above the Western Front in France and Belgium and over the Middle East. Training squadrons operated in Britain.

The exhibition will continue the Memorial’s tradition of presenting dramatic and instructive displays. It will pay tribute to the young men who fought in flimsy machines of wood, fabric and wire, risking their lives for dominance of the skies and in support of the ground operations below.

Two Bristol Fighters of the Australian Flying Corps c. 1918Two Bristol Fighters of the Australian Flying Corps c. 1918 B02209

read on

Over the Front Blog Contributors

19 August 2008 by Amanda Rebbeck. No comments
Aircraft 1914 - 1918, Exhibitions

John White is a Senior Curator in the Australian War Memorial’s Military Heraldry and Technology Section. He is currently working in Exhibitions and leads the Over the Front exhibition team.

Peter Burness is Concept Leader in the Australian War Memorial’s Exhibitions Team and is the Concept Developer for the Over the Front exhibition. He recently worked on another Memorial exhibition, To Flanders Fields, 1917. A link to the blog for that exhibition can be found here.

Jamie Croker is a Large Technology Conservator and is managing the Conservation work being carried out on the Memorial’s First World War aircraft collection.

Andrew Pearce is a Large Technology Conservator at the Australian War Memorial. He is working on the conservation of the Memorial’s First World War aircraft collection.

Amanda Rebbeck is an Assistant Curator in Military Heraldry and Technology. She is currently working in Exhibitions on the Over the Front exhibition team.