It’s going to take four years, but at least it is going to happen. What's new – National Archives of Australia, Australian Government
They've always been helpful and appreciative of the debt owed to their Service people. It would provide a good training ground and source of employment if the UK digitised everything they have on WW1 and WW2 to be freely available, rather than expect families to pay to obtain their grand- or parents records. Either that or make a payment level that would be self financing
I am looking forward to that as I have some WW2 medals, but was not willing to fork out the money they were asking.
That's great news and as KB says, the Aussies are showing the way forward in regards to records and access.
Hi, You’ve got to remember the numbers involved. British army was almost 3 million strong - a lot more than 200,000 records to copy. I speak as someone who has spent a few bob for relatives service papers over the years. Steve
That's a very fair point, Steve, and one I hadn't really considered; even so, I do feel we could probably be a bit more open and accessible. However, it's surely better to focus on the 'kudos to the Aussies' aspect of things, all in all. Cheers, Pat
Canada and New Zealand have also made the WW1 service records available online for free - hopefully they will do likewise and follow on with WW2 at some point soon (I believe Canada may have made a start with WW2 casualties records). Alistair
Hi Pat, I think the other reason that the previous Empire Dominions show “more interest” in their 20th Century military heritage is that as “newly self governing Nations “ they are rightly keen to share the contribution to the 2 world wars by their predominantly volunteer citizen armies/navies & air force’s ....on the other hand GB has many centuries of involvement in war to reflect on.... Steve
Another fair point, Steven. The remit of my family research has been WW1 and WW2, so I would admit to a certain degree of tunnel vision! Pat
National Archives signs contracts worth $4.4m to digitise Second World War service records | naa.gov.au Contracts signed and we files should start be added from next month - I'll be keeping an eye out as I have about 60 WW2 Australians whose records I'd like to see
I came across this page the other day that had an expected timeline for the records availability at the bottom- Digitising World War II service records | naa.gov.au Note that they are digitising the CMF records first, not the AIF records unfortunately. Scott