Series descriptive note

Function and purpose

This series consists of service documents for members of the Citizen's Military Forces who served during the period 1940-1947. Service numbers consisted of a single number with an alphabetical prefix for the state or territory in which the enlistment took place as follows:

Q - Queensland

N - New South Wales

V - Victoria

S - South Australia

W - Western Australia

T - Tasmania

D - Northern Territory

NG – New Guinea (used for European enlistments only)

P – Papua (used for European enlistments only)

In addition to these territorial based prefixes, three additional prefixes were used exclusively for indigenous Papua New Guinean soldiers serving in special indigenous units within the Australian Army:

NGN (‘New Guinea Native’) – used for indigenous New Guineans enlisted in the New Guinea Infantry Battalion

PN (‘Papua Native’) – used for indigenous Papuans enlisted in the Papuan Infantry Battalion

R (‘Rabaul’) – used for indigenous Papua New Guineans enlisted in the ‘M’ Special Unit Infantry Battalion in February 1945.

Three basic documents comprise the servicemen’s records:

• the Attestation form, stating details such as the serviceman’s name, age, birthplace and Next of Kin;
• the ‘B103’ or ‘Service and Casualty form’ containing the complete details of the serviceman’s movements, for example, when he was taken on strength, transferred to another battalion, and medical history. Also included was a 35mm contact print photograph attached to the back of the form. Some of these were lost or removed during business use by the Army agency.
• the Discharge form which listed how many days the officer served in Australia and overseas.

Content sometimes also includes death certificates, issue of medals, disciplinary matters, injury reports, leave postings, promotions and training.

Numbers allocated commenced at 1 for each alphabetical indicator, From 7 August 1942 female enlistees were prefixed with the letter ‘F’ after their state prefix.The dossiers were culled in the 1950s with the intention of removing material which did not provide an essential record of service.

In 1978 Central Army Records Office commenced microfilming the dossiers. 16 mm film was used and two silver halide copies were produced along with a diazzo working copy. This microfilm master is not to be issued.

Related legislation

Using the series

Language of material

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System of arrangement and control

Relationships with other records

Finding aids

All 371,217 items have been registered onto RecordSearch.

Access conditions

Series history

Provenance

Immediate source of acquisition

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Publication note

Additional information

End notes

Sources