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This article explores the way a family fashioned a memorial to a son 'taken by the war'. It focuses on the Robert's collection in Melbourne, Australia's largest bound collection of war time ephemera, and the making of what was called 'Frank's Memory Book'. It argues that families asserted ownership over their dead, crafting different modes of memorialization to authorized modes of remembrance, considers the way communities of mourners were brought together and highlights tensions between private loss and public memory. The making of ephemera is examined at length as is the part material culture plays in libraries and archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese submarine I-124 was sunk in a military engagement with Allied forces outside Darwin Harbor, Australia, with 80 submariners aboard on 20 January 1942. To mark the 80th anniversary of this historic event and complement more traditional commemorative activities, a virtual-reality experience was created for general public engagement. The experience was based on a high-resolution multi-beam sonar survey completed in October 2021 by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and used an animation-based workflow to illustrate the survey of the submarine, the events of its sinking and the historical data used to digitally reconstruct it. The animation culminates in a virtual dive across its decks as they may have appeared in the years after the sinking. Future plans for the site include diver-based surveys for photogrammetric survey and management-based monitoring. The creation of the experience required an in-depth consideration of a wide range of stakeholder needs and Australian and Japanese cultural attitudes to commemoration of World War II casualties. We describe the technical and cultural challenges encountered throughout the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The centenary of the First World War (2014–2019) expanded and reinvigorated the historiography of this conflict. In particular, the war's cultural legacy generated an outpouring of publications between 2013 and 2020 that re-evaluated its traditional cultural representations and explored fresh avenues of inquiry through analysing contemporary interpretations of the conflict in films, books and television series. In this way, the centenary afforded historians the chance to engage in a broad conversation about the significance of the cultural history and, notably, memory of the war in an unprecedented way. This article explores the development of recent scholarship on representations of the First World War in Australia and New Zealand, exploring how this body of work not only refreshed the field but also shaped and extended understandings of the war's commemorative and cultural legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is an analysis of the representation of Australian nurses in Thomas Keneally 2012 First World War novel, The Daughters of Mars. Inspired by rigorous research, Keneally fictionalizes the lives of two nursing sisters in the Middle East, on a hospital ship in the Dardanelles, as well as in hospitals and casualty clearing stations on the Western Front. His novel thus reclaims an important facet of the medical history of the First World War. The author of the article situates her analysis in the context of historical research on the First World War and the Australian Anzac myth, illuminating the specifically Australian elements in Keneally's portrait of the Durance sisters. She demonstrates that The Daughters of Mars celebrates the achievements of "Anzac girls", negotiating a place for them in the culture of commemoration. Yet, at the same time, Keneally attempts to include his female protagonists in the "manly" world of Anzac values, privileging heroism over victimization. Consequently, they become "misfits of war", eagerly accepting imperial and nationalist ideologies. Thus, in a way characteristic of Australian First World War literature, The Daughters of Mars fuses the tropes of affirmation and desolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares two former Pacific War incarceration histories in the US and Australia, inquiring how their narratives of confinement and redress might be interpreted spatially and materially, and how these sensibilities are incorporated into contemporary heritage strategies including, in these examples, through Japanese garden designs. At the Manzanar Historic Site in California, the efforts of several generations advocating for civil rights and preservation of the Manzanar Relocation Center have overlapped with the National Park Service's efforts to fulfil its federal mandates to preserve and restore the historic site. Conversely at Cowra, New South Wales, these histories are interwoven with post-war commemorative spaces, aimed at drawing visitors to former incarceration sites and encouraging contemplation of these difficult histories. This article analyses their complex creative processes and interpretive strategies as useful for drawing these isolated national stories into broader global interrogations of their significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian War Memorial occupies an important place in the contested landscape of history education in Australian schools. However, histories of war are challenging topics to teach in that they encompass histories of violence, death and trauma that we often seek to protect children and young people from encountering. This article explores the ways two exhibitions at the Australian War Memorial use confronting material to support history and civics and citizenship education, and considers the role of the museum as a teaching space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how Australian universities commemorated the First World War, with a focus on the University of Melbourne as an institution with a particularly rich history of wartime participation and of diverse forms of memorialisation.Design/methodology/approach A case study approach is taken, with an overview of the range of war memorials at the University of Melbourne. These include memorials which acknowledged the wartime role of individuals or groups associated with the University, and took the form of architectural features, and named scholarships or academic positions. Three cross-campus war memorials are examined in depth.Findings This paper demonstrates that there was a range of war memorials at Australian universities, indicating the range of views about the First World War, and its legacies, within university communities of students, graduates and staff.Originality/value University war commemoration in Australia has not been well documented. This study examines the way in which the particular character of the community at the University of Melbourne was to influence the forms of First World War commemoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commemorative events are held to remember all types of occasions including disastrous and tragic incidents. Due to the passage of time, the commemoration and collective memory of the event may change its significance and relevance due to changes in the associated social, political, and cultural landscape. This article examines the commemorative events associated with three tragic incidents that occurred on Australian soil, namely, the 175th anniversary of the Myall Creek massacre held in 2013, the 70th anniversary of the Second World War bombing of Darwin held in 2012, and the 10th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre held in 2006. National identity and commemorative events are strongly connected and the article examines these particular anniversaries and commemorative events in the context of Australian national identity, collective memory, and how the significance of these commemorations may change from generation to generation. The article finds each of the commemorative events have altered in their significance and are now remembered in a different light, with the Myall Creek massacre reflecting aspects of Aboriginal reconciliation; the bombing of Darwin reflecting Australia's role on the world's political stage; and the Port Arthur massacre highlighting Australia's strict gun laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Anzac Dawn Service is an established and increasingly well-commemorated Australian national day. Its rhythms include music, readings of ritual texts and moments of scripted silence and stillness, all of which take place in familiar commemorative environments. This article takes up the role of darkness in shaping how and what participants perceive of the Dawn Service. It draws on renderings of darkness as generative of atmosphere, linking this to national identity and commemoration. It dwells on three analytical points: that darkness recasts the built environment as mysterious and shadowy, drawing together representational and non-representational aspects of the event; second, that darkness conjures the crowd of participants as unknowable and therefore imagined to each other; and finally, that the dawning light introduces a sense of special temporality, as the inevitability of the changing light conditions moves participants through a range of affective states linked to a specifically national narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stained-glass windows of the Australian War Memorial are believed to embody the generic characteristics of fifteen members of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) of the Great War. The artist—Napier Waller—wrote a description of the lights in 1950 in order to explain the complex symbolism located above the head of each figure, and this continues to be used in Memorial publications. However, in his windows, Waller concealed additional imagery, which remained hidden for six decades. Not only did he contextualise war within the Hall of Memory, but he also used significant people in his life as models for some of the figures. Waller’s windows add dimension to the AIF’s experiences abroad and connect the memory of the fallen to their county. They also expose a man of extraordinary talent who concealed his personal desire in open view of his patron and the public. By expressing sacrifice in a manner that subverted the Memorial’s prevailing ideologies and personally transcended that commonly associated with commemoration, Waller expressed a love he could not formally declare. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In common with other western countries, there is resurgence in war commemoration in Australia indicating a serious pursuit of identity and a national story on a collective and personal level. A widespread academic and popular interest in war memory and material culture such as war memorials has emerged. War memorials often find their way on to heritage registers. This paper advances cultural biography as an approach to determine the significance of war memorials arguing that this may give a deeper understanding of its community meaning than present methods. Emerging in archaeology cultural biography considers the way that social interactions between people and objects over time create meaning. Using the Katanning war memorial statue in Western Australia as a case study, this paper argues that a cultural biographical approach may uncover a deeper cultural significance resulting from a focus on relationships than from the traditional focus on the memorial as object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past two decades there has been a rise in the number of people attending war commemoration ceremonies in Australia. This rise can be seen abroad as well -- notably at Gallipoli (Turkey) and more recently at Villiers Bretonneaux (France). In tandem, there has been a resurgence of interest in the Australian cultural phenomenon of 'Anzac' as a purveyor of national values and a rise in the number of war memorials built in Australia. This passion for remembering and commemorating war is also evident in other countries across the world. The cataclysmic events of the First World War triggered an initial wave of memorial building across Australia based mostly on cemetery architecture derived from classical forms. This design trend continued after the Second World War and forms such as obelisks are still favoured by some Australian communities. Recently however, there has been a discernible shift from traditional and classically designed war memorials to abstract and highly narrative memorials -- a trend that has not been without some controversy. Set against a rising tide of commemorative activity, this paper will explore how recent war memorial designs are re-imagining the landscape of war remembrance in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the structural malleability of the dawn service and the appeal it subsequently has for adaptation - or appropriation - by interests with a need to express, validate or perhaps procure its strong appeal to popular nationalism. A brief account of the history and mythology of the dawn service is given to indicate its origins and development as the element of Anzac Day with the most consistently popular appeal. A morphology of the ritual structure of the event is provided, with illustrative examples from Western Australia, Queensland and Canberra to show the broad variety of format that the morphology allows, while still retaining what large numbers of Australians apparently consider its integral national significance. Two recent instances of adaptation of the dawn service to ostensibly non-Anzac observances for the Bali bombings and Australia Day are then discussed to illustrate the appeal of the morphology to both official and community interests. The article concludes by arguing that the morphological elements of the dawn service can be adapted into a diversity of ritual frameworks that reflect and reinforce the different but, in this case, intersecting imperatives of government and communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military biography in Australia raises questions about the specific historiography more generally, and about the commemorative and celebratory tendencies in Australian military writing. Recent advances in the field illustrate the continuing tensions within the writing of military history in Australia, and reflect some of the same tendencies elsewhere in the English-speaking world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia opened in 1934 to articulate the social memory of the Great War of 1914–1918. The site has developed to incorporate other memorials and a Visitor Centre. An exploratory study of visitors indicated that the traditional and new memorials continue to evoke a number of responses to war. People expressed a sense of sadness and gratitude for sacrifices made by all those who have fought in war. Many people had poor knowledge of the battles which had initiated the creation of the Shrine. The study indicates the Shrine's complexity which now commemorates multiple conflicts. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, the authorised heritage discourse contributes to shaping the stereotypically Australian. It actively engages in creating a contemporary national story which glosses over the more shameful or distasteful episodes and themes in Australian colonial and post-colonial history which is presented as being by-and-large progressive and benign. While the process of forging national history has become more complex and increasingly fraught, given globalisation and the emergence of new histories, nation and nationalism remain culturally persistent. The turn to multiculturalism from the 1970s as the principal way of defining Australianness and the nation lead some conservatives in politics and the heritage industry to appropriate the new social history, using it to present diversity as an indicator of a fair and open society. In this process, both history—an evolving academic discipline—and the past—lived experience which has meanings and uses in the present—were transformed into heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proceeds through a case study of commemorative rhetoric in a British settler state, Australia, and in a provincial capital, Brisbane, whose dominant commemorative group, the Anzac Day Commemoration Committee (ADCC), had claims to have invented the national memorial rituals for the principal day of remembrance. It briefly surveys the broader Australian commemorative background, then explores the control of Anzac Day in Brisbane, focusing on accommodations and alliances between political, civil and religious leaders and the principal returned soldiers' organization, the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) on the ADCC, in Anzac Day activities, and in Anzac Day rhetoric. The article suggests that the theme of 'triumphalism' has been underplayed in analysis of interwar commemorative rhetoric in Australia, and that cooperation, accommodation and alliance were more typical of interwar commemoration than contest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

War memorials are a significant feature of the Australian landscape. Thousands were erected after the First World War in towns and suburbs across the nation as a community focus for memory, grief, and pride of their soldiers lost in the war. The Victoria Park memorial in Perth, Western Australia, originally constructed in 1917, before the war ended, and replaced in 1957, was a small suburban memorial that was born in the enthusiasm of Empire and the growing concept of Anzac. The biography of this memorial reveals a chequered and contested history typical of many local memorials in Western Australia. Concentrating on the Victoria Park memorial this article seeks to explore the relationships between its physical aspects and setting, its meaning to the community and the linkages between objects and memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information related to the online memorials which focus on the First World War complement. It mentions that declaration of a commitment to remember memorialize the First World War. It also mentions that Australian historian, Ken Inglis has estimated that every second Australian family was in mourning after the Great War.