AWM275 consists of documents collected by Lieutenant Colonel R Breen while researching his book, First to Fight, an account of the First Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (1 RAR), in Vietnam. The records comprise largely correspondence between Lt-Col Breen and those who assisted him in the writing of his book. Much of this assistance came from former members of 1 RAR, who served in Vietnam from 1965 to 1966. These correspondents provided information, corrections and suggestions. There are transcripts of interviews done with entertainers who performed in Vietnam. The series also contains official documents, including operational reports, and lessons learned, as well as media clippings, political statements, extracts from commanders' diaries and letters home from Vietnam. The records were found generally to be in alphabetical order, under the name of the person with whom Lt-Col Breen corresponded. 

Lt-Col Breen donated these documents to the Official History Unit of the Australian War Memorial for use in the writing of To Long Tan, a volume of the official history of Australian involvement in conflicts occurring in South-east Asia from 1948 until 1975. After To Long Tan was published, Lt-Col Breen's collection was passed the the Memorial's Official Records Section. The documents were housed in type three boxes and accessioned under OW93/7. In April 1999 they were rehoused, arranged and described, and listed as AWM275.

Those records found to have been extracted from commanders' diaries were checked against the original diaries in Series AWM95 and, where appropriate, integrated back into the series. The integrated records are: an operational report for Operation 9/66; details of 1 RAR air lift from Bien Hoa; the Australian Military Forces details for the parade and church service for Anzac day; and an operational report for Operation 30/65.

The records in AWM275 are identified by a single number system of imposition. The correspondence is largely in alphabetical order and may also contain extracts from diaries or operational reports. This correspondence is followed by a collection of official records. The records are housed in type one archive boxes, and occupy 1.2 shelf metres.

References:

AWM95: Australian Army Commanders' Diaries. December 1965, January 1966, February 1966, March 1966, April 1966

Breen, Bob, First to Fight, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1988

McNeill, Ian, To Long Tan, Sydney: Allen and Unwin in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1993