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I've just discovered that the National Archives of Australia site has some additional military records.
They already had WWI service records, which had been digitised and uploaded to the site, so they can be downloaded free.
They also had brief details of WWII service records (basically the name, service number, dob and next of kin), and you can buy the full record.
They've now added WWII repatriation records, which are different to the service records. The ones I've seen so far relate to repatriated RAAF PoWs and repatriated wounded men. I assume there will be files for army and navy PoWs as well. There appear to be about 13,000 of these repatriation files.
This is the NAA site:
RecordSearch - National Archives of Australia
Choose "search now as a guest user" and type in the name you're interested in.
If the name's a common one, add the word "repatriation" in the search box and search for "all words".
If you find a record you're interested in, click on the Series number, followed by Request copy, and you'll be given the choice of having the record photocopied and posted to you, or digitised and uploaded directly to the site. If there's likely to be any information in the record that you don't want to be made public, photocopying is the better option, but it's more expensive (AUS $25.00 as opposed to $16.50).
I came across these records because when I searched for my father's name, the names of some of his RAAF crew members came up. He wasn't related to them, but each crew member's file contains a statement from each of the others saying how they came to be captured, and the site has evidently indexed each file under the names of all crew members. As it happens, the file of one of my father's crew members has already been uploaded to the site (presumably one of his relations paid for it), so I was able to see my father's statement.
Apart from the statements by the crew, the file mainly contains letters to next of kin (the man whose file I saw was killed).
They already had WWI service records, which had been digitised and uploaded to the site, so they can be downloaded free.
They also had brief details of WWII service records (basically the name, service number, dob and next of kin), and you can buy the full record.
They've now added WWII repatriation records, which are different to the service records. The ones I've seen so far relate to repatriated RAAF PoWs and repatriated wounded men. I assume there will be files for army and navy PoWs as well. There appear to be about 13,000 of these repatriation files.
This is the NAA site:
RecordSearch - National Archives of Australia
Choose "search now as a guest user" and type in the name you're interested in.
If the name's a common one, add the word "repatriation" in the search box and search for "all words".
If you find a record you're interested in, click on the Series number, followed by Request copy, and you'll be given the choice of having the record photocopied and posted to you, or digitised and uploaded directly to the site. If there's likely to be any information in the record that you don't want to be made public, photocopying is the better option, but it's more expensive (AUS $25.00 as opposed to $16.50).
I came across these records because when I searched for my father's name, the names of some of his RAAF crew members came up. He wasn't related to them, but each crew member's file contains a statement from each of the others saying how they came to be captured, and the site has evidently indexed each file under the names of all crew members. As it happens, the file of one of my father's crew members has already been uploaded to the site (presumably one of his relations paid for it), so I was able to see my father's statement.
Apart from the statements by the crew, the file mainly contains letters to next of kin (the man whose file I saw was killed).
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