Series number

AWM99

Series title

Supporting documentation for relics held by the Australian War Memorial

Series contents range

01 Sep 1914 –

Extent

7 m

Access conditions

Subject to the Australian Archives Act (1983)

Agency controlling

Department of Defence

Custodial Agency

Australian War Memorial

Function and Provenance

Large Technology Objects (LTO) particularly aircraft and vehicles acquired by the Australian War Memorial are frequently accompanied by log books, maintenance records and other supporting documentation, either used throughout the service life of that particular LTO, or relating to a specific instance when that LTO was used on operations. LTO have also been historically referred to as relics.

In 1982 the Memorial decided that these documents should be consolidated into a single Series within the Official Records collection. Although the Series was created in 1982, with the first accession (OW82/9), several LTO had actually been received by the Memorial before that date, with the bulk of the LTO having being received between Jun 1979 and Aug 1988. A number of similar LTO have, at various times, been catalogued separately and are held in the Memorial's Charts and Plans collection. Since 2010 some additional LTO that were transferred to the Memorial were also received with supporting documentation.

Agencies transferring the records include RAAF No 1 Stores Depot, RAAF Technical School, RAAF No 5 Squadron, Air Force Office, Army Office, Department of Administrative Services, and the American Embassy, Canberra. Item [18/1] relating to HMAS Queenborough was received as a private donation.

Content

The series includes records relating to various aircraft, aero engines and land vehicles. The aircraft include the Canberra bomber, Douglas Dakota, Gloster Meteor, Pfalz, Wirraway II, Beaufort bomber, Lancaster, Mitsubishi Kizi "Sally" bomber, Caribou transport, plus the Sioux, Iroquois, Wessex, and Seahawk helicopters. Not all of these aircraft are still held by the War Memorial although the records have been retained. Records relating to aero engines include the Wright, Merlin II, Twin Row Wasp, Rolls Royce Avon, Avro and Avro-Anson types.

The land vehicles include the Ferret scout car [16/-] the Soviet-era T-34 tank [17/-], A Land Rover [27/-] and up armoured Mack Truck [28/-]. HMAS Queenborough [18/-], the Gun Barrel from the HMAS Anzac [24/-] and the Shinyo suicide launch [29/-] are the only maritime LTO represented.

The records themselves include airframe log books, engine log books, maintenance forms, technical and service manuals, service record certificates, flight manuals and standard schedules, diagrams, and repair parts schedules. The records as a general rule directly relate to the LTO held. There are a few exceptions where records that only generally relate to an item were accessioned, however these are exceptions not the rule.

System of Arrangement and Control

A control system was imposed for this Series by the War Memorial in July-August 1993. In most instances, this is a simple two number system where first number refers to the artefact/equipment and the second is a sequential listing of the documents or items relating to that artefact, for example [1/-] refers to the Canberra bomber (tail number A84-247), with [1/1] being the Aircraft Daily Log and service sheets for that aircraft, [1/2] being the Airframe Logbook, and so on.

In a limited number of instances, where the holdings of an item are large, a third number has been added to indicate a multi-part item (eg, [15/48/1-4) which holds multiple Amendment Lists to Australian Air Publications relating to the UH-1H Iroquois helicopter.

Note that none of the relics associated with items of the [11/-] or [12/-] subseries are held by the Memorial. These two subseries contain documents that were transferred to the Memorial in 1965 which realted to relics which had been disposed of in the previous decade.

Using the Series

Some of the records held in this series are under 20 years old and therefore will not appear when a search is made. Researchers may notice that some item numbers are missing. As these items enter the open period they will gradually become available to view.

Records are available to be viewed in the Reading Room at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra and more information can be found at: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/research-at-the-memorial

Further assistance in finding relevant information may be gained from related series of records (click on Series Links at the bottom of this page).

Sources

AWM99 Series Dossier