Sir Edward ’Weary’ Dunlop, a former rugby football

international, and a surgeon on the Burma-Thailand

Railway in the Second World War who worked tirelessly

and with enormous courage both in captivity and after

the war to help the prisoners of the Japanese. Before

The Courtyard leads to the Hall of Memory, containing

the Tomb of the Australian Unknown Soldier. Australia

has no Arlington National Cemetery, and the

overwhelming majority of its war dead are buried

overseas. The Tomb of the Australian Unknown Soldier

is an official war grave, and since being re-

interred from the Western Front in 1993 this

obscure and unknown casualty has been

honored by thousands of Australians, and by

foreign Heads of State and other dignitaries

visiting Australia. This has included Presidents

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and Prime

Minister Tony Blair.

The Collection

It would be hard to overstate the importance of

the AWM’s collection. Australia has no great

tradition of regimental museums, and the AWM

is the single national focal point for relics

relating to participation by Australians in war.

The collection is therefore extraordinarily rich

and varied.

Figure 3: The Cloisters.

describing the collections of the

AWM, it is best to describe the

commemorative area, which is a major feature of the AWM’s

building design (Figure 2). The

commemorative area incorporates

three main elements - the

Courtyard, the Cloisters, and the

Hall of Memory. The Courtyard

contains a pool of reflection and

an Eternal Flame; it is flanked by

the Cloisters, lined with bronze

plaques commemorating the

names of 102,000 Australian

servicemen and women who have

died in war (Figure 3). The names

are arranged by conflict, and then

alphabetically by unit, with no

ranks shown. This reflects Bean’s

view of the equality of sacrifice of

those who have died. Thousands of

red poppies have been left next to

the names of the dead to show that

particular service men and women

have not been forgotten by their

families (Figure 4).

While the First World War was still being

fought, Charles Bean encouraged the collection

of relics by the troops. Relics collected by Bean

Figure 4: The Roll of Honour. Thousands of poppies show that the fallen - some of whom died a century ago-- have not been forgotten.

Vol. 58, No. 3 5

himself covered both the large items such as guns and tanks, down to the pathetic reminders found discarded on the battlefield. By the end of the war hundreds of thousands of items had been collected. To these were added paintings by official war artists, photographs, and paper records. As the scope of the collection expanded, items were added from other conflicts, including the Sudan in 1885, the Boxer Rebellion, the Boer War, and of course the Second World War and subsequent conflicts.

The collection continues to expand, and now includes more than four million items. After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Australian SAS soldiers tried to donate a captured Iraqi MiG fighter to the AWM, but were unable to get the plane out of Iraq. Other smaller items were added, and Australian service personnel continue to collect and donate items to the AWM.

The original AWM building of 1941 was expanded significantly in 1971, and again in a major redevelopment that began in 1997 and was completed in June 2001. Today there are major galleries devoted to the First World War, Second World War, colonial wars, and post- 1945 conflicts. Following the most recent redevelopment there is also an aircraft hall, and the Anzac Hall, a cavernous display area for very large items including guns, tanks, planes and even a railway engine. The post- 1945 Gallery is currently closed as it undergoes its own renovation and expansion. Finally, a central feature is the Hall of Valour, home to the world’s largest public collection of Victoria Crosses.

Gallipoli in 1915. Typically, it was Charles Bean who found the boat in 1919 and arranged for it to be brought to Australia.

A major feature of the First World War Gallery is a series

of nineteen dioramas showing some of the major actions

in which Australians took part. These include the Battles

of Lone Pine, Romani, Pozieres, and Mont St Quentin

(Figure 5). A mud-caked uniform and personal

equipment - collected by Charles Bean from an Australian

soldier in July 1918 - gives a graphic illustration of the

gear worn by the Australian soldier on the Western Front.

Figure 5: The diorama of the Battle of Lone Pine, August 1915, one of Australia’s most desperate and most honored battles.

A description of a few of the items on display will hopefully give an idea of the collection. One of the more iconic items includes, in the Orientation Gallery almost as soon as visitors walk inside the building, one of the original boats that carried Australian troops ashore at

Perhaps the most poignant relic in the Second World War Gallery is the carley float believed to have come from the cruiser HMAS Sydney. After achieving fame in the Mediterranean in 1940 through sinking the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni, the Sydney was lost off the coast of Western Australia with all 645 hands in November 1941, after a fight with the German raider Kormoran. It was the Royal Australian Navy’s largest ever loss, and remains a subject of controversy. The Australian Government has recently given support to a venture to try and locate the final resting place of the Sydney.

Another Second World War relic that would be of interest

6 JOMSA

to Americans is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award of Merit for Outstanding Achievement. This special ’Oscar,’ one of four given in the best wartime documentary section at the Academy Awards in 1943, was awarded to Australian filmmaker Damien Parer for his film ’Kokoda Front Line.’ Parer was killed in action while filming a beach landing of American tanks in September 1944.

The Second World War Gallery also pays particular attention to the Australians who suffered and died as prisoners of war of the Japanese. A large collage of enlistment photos allows visitors to see the faces of the victims of the 1945 Sandakan death march, in which 1787 Australian and 641 British prisoners were forcibly marched into the interior of Borneo to prevent their liberation by allied forces. Only six Australians survived. The gallery also tells the story of the Banka Island massacre of February 16, 1942, in which 21 Australian Army Nursing Service nurses, survivors of the sinking of the Vyner Brooke, were murdered.

In the Anzac Hall, as an artillery collector, I am always drawn to the magnificent display of a 9.2-inch howitzer from the First World War, and an 18-pounder quick-firing field gun and limber from the same war. However the most popular item in the Anzac Hall is undoubtedly the Mark I Avro Lancaster bomber °G for George.’ ’G for George’ was flown by Australians in 460 Squadron RAAF, and completed ninety bombing missions over Europe between 1942 and 1944 - before being flown to Australia for inclusion in the AWM. The bomber is at the center of a sound and light show that attempts to give some idea of what the crews of Bomber Command went through, including an attacking German ME109, suspended from the ceiling. Nearby is a commemorative plaque from the Mohne Dam, a souvenir of the Dambusters raid in which Australian airmen played a prominent part.

The Anzac Hall also includes a Japanese midget submarine that attacked Sydney harbor in 1942. The submarine on display was constructed from two of the three midget submarines involved in the operation. Also in the Anzac Hall a short documentary, projected onto a large screen that is flanked by turrets from the first HMAS Sydney and the German cruiser Emden, describes the fight between the two ships in 1914 that ended with the Sydney’s message, ’Emden beached and done for.’

The Bradbury Aircraft Hall features only a small number of the AWM’s aircraft, including a Hawker Sea Fury, a de Havilland Mosquito, and a P-51 Mustang. The AWM

is particularly pleased to have on display examples of the two aircraft that fought over northern Australia and New Guinea - the United States-built Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawk, flown by Australian and American squadrons - and the Japanese Zero.

The AWM’s extensive collection of medals - not all of which are on display - can be seen throughout the different galleries. However the focus of the medal collection is the Hall of Valour. Virtually every type of Imperial gallantry award can be seen on display here, with short and very clear descriptions giving details of the actions for which the awards were given, and something about the individual recipients. The most notable feature of the medal collection are the Victoria Crosses.

The Victoria Crosses

Australians have won 96 Victoria Cross, and 58 of these are held by the AWM, either as owner or on long-term loan. The collection now includes the group to Captain Alfred Shout, VC, MC, that was sold at auction in Sydney on July 24, 2006 for AUD$1 million. It was presented to the AWM on August 25, 2006 (see front cover). The VC collection includes three Victoria Crosses from the Boer War, 39 from the First World War, 13 from the Second World War, and three out of the four awarded for the Vietnam War. In addition there are the Victoria Crosses of two British recipients (one each for the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny) who died in Australia. The single Victoria Cross awarded to Lance Corporal B. S. Gordon in 1916, and sold in Sydney in November 2006, will almost certainly be added to the collection also.

While all VCs are extraordinary, when so many are on display it is inevitable that some will stand out from the others. From the Boer War, the medal group to Australia’s first Victoria Cross is particularly special. Captain Neville Howse of the New South Wales Army Medical Corps was decorated for rescuing a wounded man under heavy fire at Vredefort in July 1900. During the Great War he

was the Chief Medical Officer of the AIF, for which he was knighted; he also gave distinguished service as a politician. Besides the Victoria Cross, and campaign medals from both wars, the group to General Sir Neville Howse includes the insignia of Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, and Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (Figure 6).

The AWM’s collection does not, unfortunately, include the Victoria Cross group to Australia’s most decorated soldier of the Great War - Lieutenant-Colonel Harry

Vol. 58, No. 3 7