In 2008, the RSL Victor Harbor Sub-branch formed a History Research Team to compile a written and visual record of those local residents, past and present, who had served in the Defence Forces.
This team of volunteers is seeking information from the community to assist us in this important project. If you have any photographs and information about a member or relative of your family, whether deceased or living, we would like to talk to you about their service. We can arrange to copy and scan records, documents and photographs to incorporate into our library of resource material.
The completed material will be held in our library and made available to the community, students, and those interested in learning about our local military heritage. This is a wonderful opportunity to compile a consolidated written historic record of that local person’s service in the defence forces.
It doesn’t matter where and when the serviceman or woman served, in Australia or overseas, during time of conflict or peacetime, as we believe there is no greater service a person can render for their country than serving in the Defence Forces.
If you would like to have your family member’s military service included in our resource and educational library, please contact the following:
Peter Francis 08 8552 7525
Ian Milnes 08 8552 9655
There are three components to our local military heritage.
(these links take you to the relevant section)
- Those local men and women who served.
- District war memorials and items of a military interest.
- War graves.
Sources of information:
The History Research Team has compiled the narratives from a number of sources, they include:
◊ The person’s service file. These are held by the National Archives of Australia and are available in printed form, or in some cases, are available from the internet.
◊ War Diaries of the army unit which the serviceperson served in.
Each army unit maintained a war diary. These are held by the Australian War Memorial. All World War One army unit war diaries have been digitised and are available online. The World War Two war diaries for the infantry battalions have also been digitised.
The Royal Australian Navy recorded and reported by the “Ship’s Log” and the Captain’s “Report of Proceedings”. The Australian War Memorial shows the Royal Australian Air Force equivalent as “Unit History Sheets and Unit Records”.
◊ Interviews with the serviceperson or family members.
◊ Other service records.
◊ Paybooks, flying log books and other documents supplied by the serviceperson or family members.
◊ Authoritative reference books, journals and other reference material such as official unit histories.
Where information comes from a private source, we endeavour to confirm the information supplied by reference to official records.
Corrections or addendums:
Should you find there is an error in a narrative we would welcome your feedback and are happy to change or add information once a claim has been referenced to an authoritative source. Please contact us via the links shown on this website.