Australian military records

Australian military records document the service of Australian soldiers. For more than a century Australian men and women have enlisted and served in the military, which often took them overseas. Military service during the two World Wars was especially impactful on Australia, with a high proportion of the (then small) population directly and indirectly involved in the conflicts.

Especially at the outset of of World War I tens of thousands of young Australian men eagerly joined the Australian Imperial Force (as the military was then known), keen to serve "King & Country". They were lured by a sense of adventure and the opportunity to see faraway lands. Many early recruits worried that the fighting might be over before they arrived, or that the German army would be a pushover. Enlistment posters and leaflets of the time promised young Australians an opportunity to see "mother" England and Europe^[1]. The recruits were naively oblivious to the horrors they would subsequently experience in bloody trench warfare at Gallipoli (Turkey) and on the Western Front in France and Belgium.

The wiki article How to Research Military Records is a good starting point for family historians interested in exploring ancestors who served in Australia's military, or who were otherwise impacted by major wars. The article provides general guidance on issues such as preparatory steps to take to make the search for military records more productive as well as pointing to other potential sources of Australian military records beyond those made available through the main Australian sources.

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Accessing Australian military records

Unlike in some other countries, there are very few restrictions on researchers seeking access to Australian historical military records. These records fall under the federal Archives Act which provides that, with the limited exception of personal details of people still living, they are accessible by the general public ("open") provided the records are more than 20 years old.

However, records must be assessed before they are deemed open. This is being undertaken progressively for all the available records and may impact the lead time before you can access the record of interest to you -- see below for further details.

Where Australian military records are stored

The National Archives of Australia (NAA) offers access to the personnel records of more than 1.5 million service men and women covering both World Wars and after. This includes individuals who served in the merchant navy and civilian service organisations.

Further potentially valuable records are held by the Australian War Memorial (AWM). For example, if a person served in the Army or Navy during World War I or World War II, the AWM holds official war diaries covering Army and Navy units during World War I or World War II. These diaries may include references to a specific individual of interest, for example providing details of their participation in a particular battle or campaign and the details for any commendations they received.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). The CWGC maintains a database of British Commonwealth military personnel, including Australians, who died in the First and Second World Wars.

The Boer War (1899 - 1902) spans the period before and after the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia (1901). As a general guide, the colonial period military records are held in the official archives of the various state governments, while post-Federation records are held by the NAA^[2].

The information included in Australian military records

The NAA's searchable index of personal service records includes details such as the individual's name, the series & item number of the record, where it is held and its physical format (for example paper file, photograph, etc.), and whether it is "open" (that is it has already been assessed as available for public access).

The service record itself contains information about the individual from enlistment and throughout their military service, including (where this information is relevant):

An "attestation paper" (enlistment form) showing:
- name
- next-of-kin
- employment / trade details
- marital status
- age
- place of birth
- physical description
- prior military service
A "service and casualty" form listing:
- movements and transfers between units
- promotions
- when and how a soldier was injured
- details of medical treatment
- military correspondence
Identity photographs of the individual (available in around 40% of World War II Army and Air Force service records, but not for Navy and World War I Army service records).

The AWM holds extensive collections of records covering every aspect of Australia's military history. These include everything from reports, papers, and photographs to leaflets, postcards, and souvenirs. One collection of particular interest to family historians are First World War "embarkation nominal rolls". This details individual servicemen and women who embarked from Australia during the First World War, including the individual's unit and the vessel and date of departure^[3].

The CWGC website offers powerful search options that allows you to refine searches by many different criteria including name, country, cemetery, unit, rank, regiment, date of death, and honours and awards.

Cost and processing time to obtain Australian military records

For Australian personal service records held by the NAA:

Those records marked "open" and already digitized (copied in digital format) are available immediately online for review and for download as PDFs at no cost.
For records listed in the database, but not yet digitized, you can lodge a request online with the NAA for this to be done on a priority basis for the payment of a fee. The fee is on a fixed, sliding scale dependent on the number of pages involved. If the size of the record is unknown, you can submit a request for a quote to determine the cost.
If a record has an access status of "not yet examined", it will need to be reviewed by the NAA for potential sensitivities before it can be digitized. In this case, you will need to first submit a separate application. This process can take up to 90 days.
The NAA aims to provide online copies of records which, at the time of ordering have already been cleared for public access, within 30 business days of receiving a paid request^[4].

Australian military records held by the AWM and CWGC available online are available immediately and at no cost. As with the NAA, millions of records held by the AWM are being progressively digitized.

Explore more about Australian military records

MyHeritage includes Australian military records in 9 collections with over 3 million individual entries. The largest collections include:

The MyHeritage Australian Newspapers collection, with almost 15 million records, is another potential source of relevant information, including military-related obituaries and contemporaneous news stories of Australian servicemen and women in military conflicts since the late 19^th century.

Coraweb, a free Australian online directory, includes links to almost 90 databases covering different aspects of Australia's military history. These include specialist indexes of otherwise hard-to-find information, for example a nominal roll of all persons ("nashos") who underwent compulsory military training under the National Service Act, 1951-1972.

An NAA research guide, The Boer War: Australians and the War in South Africa, 1899–1902 by Craig Wilcox provides a detailed guide to available resources for researching service records and other personnel details from this conflict.

References

[1] The rush to enlist. State Library of Victoria: Ergo. (n.d.).

[2] Information Sheet: Personal service records: Australian service. Australian War Memorial. (n.d.).

[3] Unit embarkation nominal rolls, 1914-18 War. Australian War Memorial. (n.d.-b).

[4] National Archives of Australia. How to use Record Search. (n.d.).

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