Archive for the ‘Collection’ Category

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….

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

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.

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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

Olympian digger

08 August 2008 by Kerrie Leech. 4 Comments
Collection, From the collection, Personal Stories, ,

Studio portrait of Tom Richards in 1917 (from Gold, mud 'n' guts by Greg Growden).Studio portrait of Tom Richards in 1917 (from Gold, mud 'n' guts by Greg Growden).

With Olympics fever upon us, I was prompted to look through the Memorial’s collection to see what material we held on Olympians.  One collection in the Private Records area caught my eye.  It was created by Lieutenant Thomas James Richards, MC who won a gold medal for rugby at the 1908 London Olympics.  Before joining the Army, Richards played rugby first in Queensland, then in South Africa and England.  read on

New acquisition: Surf in Australia

18 July 2008 by Mel Hunt. No comments
Collection, New acquisitions,

Australian armed forces have had a long and proud association with surf lifesaving in Australia as reflected in this copy of ‘Surf in Australia’ magazine. It contains news and extracts of ‘letters from the services’ overseas, honour rolls of members killed in action, a report on the first R.A.A.F. surf lifesaving club at Evans Head run by the No.1 bombing and Gunnery School in New South Wales along with reports of fund-raising activities and news updates from Surf Life-Saving Association of Australia clubs all around Tasmania and across News South Wales.

Surf in Australia, Vol.6 No.4, December 8 1941: RC07113Surf in Australia, Vol.6 No.4, December 8 1941: RC07113

By the time this issue of the magazine was published in 1941, over 50% of lifesaving members had enlisted for service in Australia or overseas. Club membership and funding was struggling due to the large number of members enlisting and from the considerable efforts of the clubs to provide comforts for those of their members who were in the fighting forces.

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How to make a POW escape map

09 July 2008 by Di Rutherford. 4 Comments
Collection,

Prisoners in German POW camps were very resourceful. My favourite items to have come out of POW camps in Europe are the maps they made for escape attempts. Early in the war men would draw their maps by hand, but this took a long time and at the end you would have only one copied map. If many prisoners were trying to escape it would take too long to make all the maps they required - especially for large escapes, like the famous “Great Escape” from Stalag Luft III.

The handrawn master map and a copy made by Jack Millett in Oflag IVC, Colditz.The handrawn master map and a copy made by Jack Millett in Oflag IVC, Colditz.

One quick and easy method to create many copies of a map was through jelly mimeograph. Recently the Memorial acquired the collection of Jack Millett, a Western Australian man captured at Crete who later became the main map maker in Colditz. The collection included two ‘master’ maps (i.e. the handdrawn originals on waxy paper) and ten mimeograph copied maps.

I have been interested in seeing how well the theory of what I had read would work, so one weekend I got together some supplies I found around my home and did the following experiment in my kitchen. read on

Can’t see the tree for the wood…

03 June 2008 by Di Rutherford. 4 Comments
Collection, From the collection,

One of my favourite items at the Memorial is a tall steel and iron German camouflage tree from the First World War. During the First World War fake trees were one method used for disguising observation posts on the Western Front. This tree is from Oosttaverne Wood (also sometimes spelt Oostaverne Wood), near Messines in Belgium. We don’t know when the tree was erected in the wood, but it could have been used by the Germans up until 7 June 1917, when the Oosttaverne area was captured by the British during the Battle of Messines.

February 1918. Two Australian officers inspecting a German camouflage tree. The entrance is at the base of the tree.February 1918. Two Australian officers inspecting a German camouflage tree. The entrance is at the base of the tree. E04548

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