Collected: Stories from the Australian War Memorial

The Australian Army has always had rules about who is allowed to fight for their country. But during the First World War those rules were sidestepped by thousands of underage boys desperate to enlist. In Episode 32 of Collected, Louise Maher hears the stories of the boy soldiers who went looking for adventure, many never to return, and the project to ensure their memory is kept alive.  

Women now comprise more than 25 per cent of service personnel in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and there are no restrictions on what they’re allowed to do. But it wasn’t always like this. In Episode 31 of Collected, Louise Maher is shown the clothes and hears the stories of some of the female pioneers, including members of the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) that was formed in World War 2.

The V2 rocket developed by the Germans in World War Two was the world’s first strategic ballistic missile and a forerunner of the rocket that took humans to the moon.

In Episode 30 of Collected, Louise Maher is shown a captured V2 that was brought to Australia after the war and hears the testimony of a Jewish concentration camp survivor forced to work on the Nazi weapons project.    

Jewellery given and received in war is a symbol of love, pride and support. It comes in many forms, from expensive, commercially manufactured pieces in precious metals to hand-made objects crafted from whatever material was available.

In Episode 29 of Collected, Louise Maher is shown a range of sweetheart jewellery, including a tiny gold brooch, a silver identity bracelet and a necklace made from shells.

The Lone Pine

The magnificent Lone Pine planted at the Memorial is 1934 is a living symbol of the sacrifice of war.

It was grown by a bereaved mother from the seeds from pine cones gathered by her son at Gallipoli. Since the late 1940s, around 70,000 seedlings have been propagated from this one tree for distribution around Australia and the world.

In Episode 28 of Collected, Louise Maher visits the tree in the Memorial’s grounds, the Lone Pine diorama which dramatically recreates the battle which took its name, as well as the nursery where the seedlings are tended and a school which has proudly planted one.

The history of military aviation is told in the stories of the Memorial’s oldest and newest aircraft. Built 70 years apart, these two planes demonstrate the huge and rapid shifts in design and technology in the 20th century. In Episode 27 of Collected, Louise Maher visits the Treloar Technology Centre to see a 1910 monoplane that was purchased for Australia’s first military flying school and an FA-18 Classic Hornet recently retired from service with the RAAF.

HMAS Brisbane was one of the first three major Australian war ships designed and built in the United States and the last steam powered ship in the Royal Australian Navy. After the destroyer was retired from service in 2003, its command and control centre, the bridge, was placed on display at the Memorial. Join Louise Maher on a tour of the bridge to learn about HMAS Brisbane’s role in the Vietnam and Gulf Wars.

The Australian tail gunners who served in World War Two had a particularly dangerous job. They spent hours in cramped, freezing conditions, perched in Perspex turrets at the rear of bomber planes, vulnerable to enemy fire and often exposed to the elements.

In Episode 25 of Collected, Louise Maher is shown a gun turret that survived the war and hears the stories of men who lived to tell the tale of bombing raids over Europe.

In 1945, a young Indigenous Australian solider recently released from a German prisoner-of-war camp sat to have his portrait painted by war artist, Stella Bowen. It was nearly 70 years before his identity was discovered. In Episode 24 of Collected, Louise Maher explores the work of the ‘ghost-hunters’ behind the Memorial’s Indigenous Defence List which acknowledges and honours the service of Indigenous Australian defence personnel. 

How do you preserve fragile items of clothing that tell remarkable stories about two young women whose lives were transformed by World War Two? Henryka’s cotton frock was made from Nazi curtains to give her something to wear when she finally walked free from a concentration camp. Maud’s satin wedding gown was packed away for three years while she waited to be reunited with her American fiancé. In Episode 23 of Collected Louise Maher explores the lives of these two women and finds out how their precious dresses are being cared for at the Memorial.