Quoting from PS News Edition Number 530. Updated Tuesday 15 November 2016. http://www.psnews.com.au/aps/530/news/archives-liberates-wartime-records?utm_source=aps530&utm_medium=email&utm_content=news1&utm_campaign=newsletter_aps
Archives liberates wartime records
The National Archives of Australia (NAA) has announced the completion of a three-year national project to make the medical records of many of Australia’s World War I Anzacs more easily available to the public.
According to the Archives, the project, which ensures the preservation of more than 256,000 World War I repatriation files, goes partway towards publicly listing and repackaging records containing the medical, hospital and pension details of Anzacs who returned from the war.
Senior Curator at NAA, Anne-Marie Condé said some veterans had three or more repatriation records, sometimes in folders up to 20 cm thick; however, returning soldiers with no health issues or pension applications might not have a repatriation file at all.
She said the Archives fully digitised nearly 5,600 of the repatriation records, giving an insight into the problems faced by veterans when they returned home.
Anzacs’ health records now available
“For many, the horrors of war never ended,” Ms Condé said.
“Some individuals’ files contain more than 500 pages of information — often revealing distressing details of their ongoing battles with illness, disfigurement and shell shock.”
She said many of the digitised repatriation files belonged to Anzacs who sailed away from Albany, WA, with the first convoy on 1 November 1914.
“Those men had a very long war,” Ms Condé said.
She said for returning veterans whose records had not already been digitised, families could request and purchase copies of their own relatives’ files.
She said however, there would be a delay until July 2017 with records held in Canberra due to the continuing relocation of records to the new National Archives Preservation Facility.
“Since the records were gradually released from 2014, there has been a marked increase in people researching the files, with more than one million views in the past financial year,” Ms Condé said.
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