Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Photograph of PTE 68 Wesley Paul Choat MM in Britain in 1918 after escaping. AWM image: P03236.156.

SX2663 Private Edward Ernest SMITH

Sgt Bert Smyth, 3rd Battalion

William Smith's trench art

"Australia Remembers" plaque. Inscription: Jack Deacon, Army, 1941-1946. City of West Torrens

A 4.5 inch howitzer of 108th Howitzer Battery of the 8th FIeld Artillery Brigade deployed in line behind a dyke or elevated road which provides them with cover from fire and view by the enemy

No. 180 Squadron B25 Mitchell Bomber taxiing for take off from RAF Dunsfold, Surrey UK June 1944

Charles Wilfred Hart

Australian delegates at the Japanese surrender ceremony on board USS Missouri. Left to right: (back row) Captain J. Balfour; Lieutenant Colonel D. H. Dwyer; Air Vice Marshal G. Jones; Lieutenant General F. H. Berryman; Commodore J. A. Collins. Front row: Rear Admiral G. Moore; General Sir Thomas Blamey (who signed for Australia) and Air Vice Marshal W. D. Bostock.

Possibly one of the most recognised photos of the AIF on the Western Front. Lieutenant Rupert Frederick Arding Downes MC addresses his Platoon from B Company, 29th Battalion on 8 August 1918 during a rest before the advance onto Harbonnieres, the battalion's second objective. They are near the villages of Warfusee and Lamotte, France. The background of the photograph is obscured by the smoke of heavy shellfire. Many of the men pictured were killed in action or died of wounds or disease in the days and weeks after the photograph was taken, being amongst the last Australian deaths during the First World War. Each man has a story. Pte Towers (fourth from right), for example, was a farm labourer of Cootamundra, NSW, who later transferred to the 32nd Battalion. He was admitted to the Abbeville Hospital on 9 November 1918 suffering broncho-pneumonia where he died on 11 November 1918.

Captain Henry Samuel COPE MC, 43rd Battalion

Troops of what is belkieved to be the 10th Battalion on the deck of the battleship Prince of Wales in Mudros Harbour. This ship was part of the fleet which transported Australian troops to the Gallipoli landing at Anzac Cove. The Battalion was embarked on the Prince of Wales before transferring to the fleet small craft that took them ashore at ANZAC to carry out the landing.

NF462502 Gunner Norma Vesta MEAKIN's headstone at Rookwood War Cemetery

Squadron Leader Keith "Bluey" Truscott taxis his P40 Kittyhawk on the Martson Matt perforated steel plate strip at Milne Bay

The cover of Gellert's most successful book of poetry, which cemented his reputation as Australia's premier warrior poet of WW1

846 Private Roy Stephen KENYON, MM

A Halifax of 158 Squadron with its aircrew astride the fuselage and wings

A 21 Squadron Liberator A72-92, lost on27 July 1945. It had perviously flown with 7 OTU, 24 and 25 Squadrons. Seven of the crew were lost

RH Panel Image 002 - Corporal Frank Allchin

PORTRAIT OF 8028 DRIVER R.B. COCHRANE, 6TH FIELD ARTILLERY BRIGADE, KILLED IN ACTION 1916-08-03.

A group of seven sergeants waiting to board on the troopship RMS Orontes. Identified back row right: 31661 Wheeler Sergeant (W/Sgt) William Richardson, 43 year old carpenter of Fremantle, WA. W/Sgt Richardson of 9th Reinforcements of 10th Field Artillery Brigade, has a wheel qualification badge on his right sleeve. All others are Master Gunners as denoted by their cloth gun badges on their right sleeves. Front row second left has a metal gun badge. Known to be amongst the group but exact positions unknown are: 31436 Sgt Keith A’Beckett Klingender, of Toorak, Vic, of 9th Reinforcements of 14th Field Artillery Brigade; 31586 Sgt Frank Moritz Michaelis, farmer of St Kilda, Vic of 12th Reinforcements of 6th Field Artillery Brigade. Sgt Michaelis died of meningitis on 14 May 1917 in England; 31361 Sgt Arthur Ernest McKean, clerk of Albert Park, Vic, of 12th Reinforcements of 4th Field Artillery Brigade (possibly centre front).

AWM Photograph P07344.002

The Lockleys Soldiers Memorial Hall configured as the Windsor Cinema until its closure in 199

A Poster urging Australians to avenge the sinking of the Centaur by contributing to the war effort

FSGT Brian Grasby's grave at Hellemmes-LIlle Communal Cemetery interred with two other crewmates and other aircrew lost on the Lille raid.

3RAR’s Regimental Sergeant Major, Vince Murdoch, tends a wounded and blindfolded North Vietnamese soldier at Balmoral.

A GROUP OF SISTERS OF THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY NURSING SERVICE, 106 CASUALTY CLEARING STATION. IDENTIFIED PERSONNEL ARE:- SISTER G. PARKINSON (1); SISTER G. THOMAS (2); SISTER D.A. NEWTON (3); SISTER E.M. FINLAYSON (4); SISTER E.M. SAUNDERS (5).

Thomas Baker's Pilots Course. Baker is circled (right) and a colleague Packer is circled left.

That picture is HMAS <i>Sydney (III)</i> in the Tsushima Straits the morning after evasive/survival action trying to minimise the effects of the infamous Typhoon Ruth. The storm killed 500 ashore in Japan and registered the limit of 120 knots on <i>Sydney's</i> anemometer before it broke. We regularly shipped green water over the flight deck and lost five aircraft overnight damaged beyond economical repair, including one overboard. Also, one forklift and the captain's jollyboat broke adrift and went for a swim, never to be seen again. But our faithful doggie, the Netherlands' <i>Von Galen</i>, fared much worse. Glimpsed astern every now and then through blinding rain at night, <i>Sydney</i> told her that she need not keep station. By flickering Aldis retrieved from a wrecked motorboat she reported four major fires, boiler and engine rooms flooded, only one boiler working, total electrical failure, no radar, no radio, no gyro compass, useless (spinning) magnetic compass, manual steering and all boats and rafts either stove in or swept away. It was suffixed with a plaintive, <i>"May we stay with you?"</i>

ONE OF THE GUNS OF THE 2/2ND FIELD REGIMENT FIRING AT A JAPANESE POSITION IN THE AREA IN WHICH LIEUTENANT A. CHOWNE, MM, GAINED HIS VC.

Commemorative Medallion which together with a Commemorative Scroll, were presented to the families of the Fallen

Private James BYRNE originally from Beachport, late of Mt Gambier. 10th Bn later Div Traffic Control (MPs)

POK's crew taken in December 1943. This photo believed to have been contributed by George Litchfield's family. George LITCHFIELD (bomb aimer) front centre. L-R Believed to be SCOTT (W/Op), BOETTCHER (rear gunner), PATKIN (pilot), CHAMBERS (Flight engineer), (Navigator) . Absent is FSGT BLACKWELL the mid upper gunner The aircraft behind them is not the one in which they were lost on 1/2 January ('PO-K'). It is 'PO-M' a unit workhorse as evidenced by the 53 missions it had flown at this time (presumed to be late 1943). 'PO-M' features in two other images; AWM UK0463.jpg which 'captured' the aircraft at an earlier point in its career, on 31 August 1943 when it had completed 40 missions and had its designation changed from 'PO-U' to 'PO-M'. Another image on the 467 Squadron page features this aircraft at the same time - 31 August 1943 with its crew.

463-squadron Lancaster 'S for Sugar' bombing-up at RAF Waddington. The large cylindrical bomb is an 8,000lb 'blockbuster' a larger version of the 4,000ln 'Cookie'.

Captain Henry Samuel COPE MC, 43rd Battalion RH#16

Stanley Holm Watson - from an image on the Railways Memorial Adelaide Railway Station Concourse.

Headstone of William Atkinson 4655 at Cheltenham Memorial Park, Victoria.

HMAS Bataan, a destroyer, off the Korean Peninsula. The destroyer is seen here engaged in receiving a jackstay transfer from the Royal Navy carrier HMS OCEAN. It is sufficiently clear to show the late Commander Warwick Gracegirdle, RAN - BATAAN 's Korean War CO - on the bridge. This photo is taken off Korea, and the destroyer in the background is HMS CONSORT. Photo: Photographer unknown, the image was published in 1986 for the RAN's 75th Anniversary celebrations. The image is held in the Naval Historical Collection, Australian War Memorial, image ID 300378, listed copyright expired, public domain. It has also been posted on an InvisionFree ship modeller's blog. These are the AWM's descriptive notes that accompany the image: KOREA. ELEVATED PORT SIDE VIEW SHOWING DETAIL OF THE FORWARD PART OF THE DESTROYER HMAS BATAAN (EX-HMAS KURNAI) (D191) AS SHE RECEIVES PERSONNEL BY HIGHLINE FROM THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER HMS OCEAN. NOTE FORWARD TWIN 4.7 INCH MK XII GUNS IN CP XIX MOUNTINGS, WITH THE BREECHES OF B MOUNTING PROMINENT AND THE 40 MM BOFORS AA GUN IN THE PORT BRIDGE WING. BEHIND THE BRIDGE ARE THE DIRECTOR CONTROL TOWER AND RANGEFINDER TOWER MK II WITH A TYPE 285 FIRE CONTROL RADAR MOUNTED UPON THE LATTER. NOTE ROPE STOWAGE IN THE BLAST SCREEN FORWARD OF B MOUNTING AND CARLEY FLOATS BY THE FORWARD SUPERSTRUCTURE WITH PADDLES NEATLY ARRAYED. THE SCREENING DESTROYER IN THE BACKGROUND IS HMS CONSORT. (NAVAL HISTORICAL COLLECTION)

Sketch map, the action at Isurava, 29 August 1942

FSGT Len Henderson in the rear turret of Lancaster JO-K - later lost on 7 Dec 1944

A map illustrating the orientation of forces at Fromelles. "Western Front 1916-17 The Price of Honour" Laffin Time Life Books 1987