Stanley Melbourne Bruce accumulated the World War II files contained in series M100 while Australian High Commissioner to Britain, a position he held from 1933-45.  As High Commissioner, Bruce acted as a key conduit of information between the British and Australian governments during the war.  Consequently, the series contains many cables exchanged with Australian Prime Ministers, R G Menzies and John Curtin, as well as significant correspondence with other Australian and British Government ministers and senior public servants.

A file exists for each month from September 1939 to August 1945 although the first file (September 1939) also contains papers regarding the political circumstances leading up to conflict dating from June 1939.  Detailed file based indexes, which appear to have been compiled some time after the creation of the files, are placed at the front of each file.  Each item contains correspondence, typescript copies of cables, reports, memoranda, and records of meetings, discussions and interviews, including notes of meetings with other Dominion High Commissioners and with British ministers and public servants.     

The series concerns numerous aspects and events of World War II including: 
- early negotiations between Britain and Germany; 
- the political and war situation in various overseas countries such as Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, Poland, Rumania, Greece, Holland, Turkey, France, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Spain, Norway, Ireland, Egypt, Abyssinia and Iraq; 
- the stance by British and Dominion government in view of the war; 
- Anglo-American cooperation; 
- the situation in Singapore, the Far East, the Mediterranean and the Middle East; 
- movements and provisioning of Australian troops; 
- the Empire Air Training Scheme; 
- aircraft manufacture in Australia; 
- Australian war loans; 
- the Japanese-German pact; 
- Supreme War Council meetings, actions and reports; 
- the bombing of London; 
- war in the Pacific and the defence of Australia; 
- the use of Australian destroyers and aircraft; 
- prisoners of war; 
- Arab-Jewish policy; 
- 'economic warfare'; 
- oil supplies; 
- the dropping of leaflets over Germany; 
- the political situation in Australia and Britain; 
- the export of Australian products such as wool, butter, meat, wheat and sugar; 
- the migration of British children to the Dominions; 
- visits by Dominion ministers to Britain; 
- post-war economic and other problems; 
- and the future of the League of Nations and possible alternative forms of world organisation.

Early folders in the series, September 1939 - December 1940, are numbered 1-16.  Folders from January - December 1941 are numbered 1-12 in line with calendar months.  Subsequent folders are not numbered.  Hence these numbers have been disregarded as a means of control and month based control symbols have been used instead, such as 'September 1939', 'January 1943' etc. 
 

Agency controlling unregistered

Estate of CP23, the late Lord Bruce