FUNCTION AND CONTENT

This series consists of 9 reel to reel audio tapes, 3 files and one alphabetical index of personnel concerned with operations of the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD) in World War II.

The tapes, items [1] to [9], are recordings made by Mr Southall in preparation for writing a book on SRD activities of World War II.  The tapes were mainly dictated by Mr Southall from SRD operational files held at Heckfield, presumably under the supervision of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), in about October 1965. [1.] It is not known if the files that Mr Southall sighted at Heckfield still exist, or whether the DMI, Department of Defence, stills holds any of this material, but many SRD and related files are now held in the Archives (see series A3269).

Of the 3 files in this series, the first one, item [10], appears to be the beginnings of a draft manuscript of a history of SRD accompanied by many notes made by Mr Southall including crew lists for several operations, lists of useful photographs and a list of names and addresses of Z special unit personnel. [2.]  The papers on this file have been categorized and numbered together with a contents page at the front all added at some later date, probably by DMI, before the creation of the file itself.

The second file, item [11], is a catalogue of the tape recordings giving tape number, a subject heading and a tape counter reading.  A copy of this catalogue appears in the Reading Room inventory for this series.  The index at the front shows that one of the tapes consists of an interview with Colonel Gordon Oldham who was a Deputy Director of SRD. 

The third file, item [12], consists of pink flimsy carbon copies of lists of SRD personnel, titled 'SRD Personnel: Index of Officers and Senior NCOs mentioned in Official Histories', dated 1957. There are two copies within the cover and they give name, rank and service (which includes operations overseas) and a reference. [3.] It appears that this is not an official file but merely copies from another file, probably from DMI records.

The alphabetical index of SRD personnel, item [13], seems to be an earlier [4.] version of item [12] drawing from mostly different sources and may have been used by Mr Southall to make the notes in item [10]. The files noted at the beginning of this index clearly are part of series A3269, but many are not in the custody of Archives:

A  SRD Operations approved for release - possibly item O8 or various
    operations files now held in A3269
B  'D' Group Personnel General - SRD file L3 [Lugger Maintenance
    Station West Base] - not in Archives custody
C  SOA Inside Organisation I - SRD file H8 [SRD Headquarters] - not
    in Archives custody
D  Volume IV Intelligence Series - possibly item O10 or O12 - not in
    Archives custody
E  Documentary appendix I to D - item O13 of series A3269
F  Documentary appendix II to D - item O14 of series A3269
G  'D' group operatives - SRD file L4 [Lugger Maintenance Station
    West Base] - not in Archives custody
H  D/Brisbane War Diary - SRD file K4 [Group B, Brisbane] - not in
    Archives custody
I  Correspondence regarding Pay and Allowances - see item in series
    A10910
J  History of SOA, ISD and SRD - Vol I Organisation - item O7A in
    series A3269


SERIES HISTORY

In the early to mid 1960's Mr Southall created the tapes by dictating the contents of SRD operations files onto them, interspersed with his own comments.

The contents of the first and second files, items [10] and [11], were compiled by Mr Southall, about the same time as the audio tapes or shortly after. It seems that these files were then either sent or given to the Department of Defence, probably via DMI, at some unknown date, for unknown reasons.

The third file contains two copies of pink flimsies noted above. It seems likely that this information was readily available in this format to DMI which then gave them to Mr Southall to assist him in the writing of his book. The cover of the file is merely a manilla folder and not a departmental file cover.  This file was also sent to the department for unknown reasons.

In February 1966 DMI gave the first and second files, items [10] and [11], the numbers Z1 and Z2, an artificial designation in keeping with the sequence of file numbers in A3269, then still held by DMI. The files were not in fact part of this series at all and DMI may have used the numbers purely as a convenient control. The third file, item [12], was not then numbered.

In May 1981, items [10], [11] and [12], were transferred to Archives as items Z1, Z2 and W8 (another artificial designation), respectively of series A3269.  In February 1982, responding to a public request for access through Archives, the Department of Defence transferred many SRD files including the tapes (items [1] to [9]) and the personnel index (item [13]) into series A3269, then controlled as parts of item W10 (tapes) and W8 (index to personnel) - further artificial designations.

In July 1989, Archives made audio cassette copies of items [1] to [9] to facilitate public access and preserve the original tapes.  The master and duplicating copy were held by the NSW office of Archives, and reference copies (comprising 26 cassette tapes each) were held in the ACT and NSW offices of Archives.

In 1997 the Arrangement and Description Unit of Archives worked on series A3269 and it was decided to remove the tapes and files associated with Mr Southall's research for a book on SRD activities and create a separate series. A single running number was used to identify the separate tapes and files.

Finding Aids

All items of this series in the custody of Australian Archives as at August 1997 have been entered on the item level database, ANGAM II.


END NOTES

1. items [1] and [3] have 'Oct 1965' written on the cover boxes.

2. The notes indicate that Mr Southall had access to a copy of Ronald McKie's book 'The Heroes' which was first published by Angus & Robertson in February 1960.  This indicates that, in all likelihood, these notes post date February 1960.

3. the list refers to three files which are now held by Archives in series A3269 - items O7/A, O8/A and O6.

4. at the end of the 'notes' in the beginning of the index, the date 18 February 1952 is given - the assumed date by which this index was completed.

Person recording unregistered

post Feb 1960 - c Oct 1965 : Mr Ivan SOUTHALL