Military Records
Libraries : Family History Societies
Indigenous people have served in every military conflict that Australia has been involved in since the Boer War (1899-1902).
This information sheet from the Australian War Memorial is a step-by-step guide to the main sources for researching the service and wartime experiences of family members. It is a useful starting point for new family historians.
General Military Information Links:
- How to Find a Digger
- National Archives of Australia - Defence Records
- A gift to the Nation - World War I service records online at the National Archives of Australia
- World War II Nominal Roll
- Nominal Rolls - details of people who serviced in various wars / conflicts
- Military information links - from Cyndi's List
- AIF Database - online database containing the details of 330,000 men and women who served in the first Australian Imperial Force, 1914-1918
Specific Indigenous Military links:
AIATSIS Indigenous Australians at war
Published Works
Below is a select list of books that have been published on the involvement of Indigenous people in war. These may be able to be obtained on inter-library loan through a local library.
To find a more complete listing of material on this subject held in the AIATSIS Library, click here and an automatic search will be made of MURA®, the AIATSIS catalogue. There you will find a thorough listing of material held that you can select from.
Some selected works are listed below:
- Jackomos, Alick, Forgotten heroes: Aborigines at war from the Somme to Vietnam, South Melbourne: Victoria Press, 1993.
- Aborigines in the Defence of Australia, edited by Desmond Ball, Sydney: Australian National University Press, 1991.
- Biographical Register of Queensland Aborigines who Served in the Great War, 1914-1918, Compiled by Rod Pratt, Wynnum: Rod Pratt, 1993.
- Hall, Robert, Fighters from the fringe: Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders recall the Second World War, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies, 1995.
- Hall, Robert, The Black Diggers: Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the Second World War, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989.