Official Histories - Family Research

Image: CEW Bean, historian and father of the Australian War Memorial.

The detailed official story of Australia in the Great War is available free to all on the Australian War Memorial website. Between 1921 and 1940 a 12-volume (including a photographic volume) official history of Australia’s involvement in the First World War was published. This history was published by the Australian War Memorial, under the guidance of Charles Bean, originally Australia’s official war correspondent, then later official war historian and founder of the AWM. Bean himself wrote the first six volumes of the history, which deal with the AIF from 1914-1918. Other individual volumes deal with the AIF in Sinai and Palestine, 1914-1918 (Vol. VII); the Australian Flying Corps (Vol. VIII); the RAN (Vol. IX); Australia and German New Guinea (Vol. X); Australia during the war (Vol. XI); and a ‘photographic record’ of the war (Vol. XII). All volumes of the history, with the exception of Vol. XII, are available to view and download at the AWM’s website.

In addition, the three-volume Official History of the Australian Army Medical Services, 1914-1918 is available online, along with Bean’s 1946 abridged single-volume version of the official history, Anzac to Amiens, and his 1948 work Gallipoli Mission.

To view the official histories go to the Australian War Memorial website (https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/AWMOHWW1/).