Official Histories
Since its inception, the Australian War Memorial has sponsored Australia's official war histories. Australian governments have commissioned four separate series of official war histories over this period, one for each of the major conflicts in which Australia has been involved: the two world wars and the Cold War conflicts in Korea and Southeast Asia. In 2004, the Federal Government authorised the writing of a fifth official history relating to Peacekeeping and Post–Cold War operations.
Official
histories are ‘official’ in the sense that they are commissioned
by government as the national record of Australia’s involvement in
particular conflicts, and the official historians have been granted unrestricted
access to closed period and security-classified government records. All the
Australian official war histories contain their author’s own interpretations
and judgements and do not follow any official or government line.
As such, these works are the first published official record of Australia’s involvement in War. They are a detailed chronological record of all services and all theatres of conflict. They comprise an invaluable resource for researchers at all levels, from the scholar to the general reader. The official war histories are our enduring national record providing a comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible account of the Australian experience of war.
Please select a conflict:
- First World War
- Second World War
- Korean War
- Southeast Asian Conflicts
- Peacekeeping and Post–Cold War Operations
Please note: Only the First and Second World War Official Histories are available here in digital format. Images of the original pages can be viewed and words in the text searched.
