AWM33 is an artificial series of records relating to the military occupation of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force during 1914-1921 and to the writing of The Official History of Australian during the War of 1914-18: Volume X, The Australians at Rabaul: the capture and administration of German possessions in the southern Pacific by Seaforth Simpson McKenzie (published 1927). While it is a composite of private donations and officially transferred records accessioned by the Memorial between 1928 and 1965, the bulk of the series consists of Department of Defence records transferred through the Official Historian between 1928 and 1940. The series date range 1914-1926 reflects the administrative context in which the records were created, rather than the subsequent composite accumulation of the records themselves. The records were initially housed together as "New Guinea campaign records" (also known as the "Holmes Collection") in a filing cabinet, and were arranged into sub-groups based on type of record and the provenance of the accessions. Divider cards separated records under the following headings: HOLMES COLLECTION (Items [1]-[8]) This group seems to have been so named because of the important acquisition of Colonel Holmes diary from the Department of Defence in 1928, and the later donation of records from Holmes family in 1963. REPORTS AND DESPATCHES - HOLMES AND PETHEBRIDGE (Items [9]-[12/19]) As with "Reports miscellaneous 1914-1918" and "Reports miscellaneous 1919-1922" below, this group contains reports and memoranda from the various Administrators of German New Guinea to the Department of Defence. All three groups of records were transferred through the Official Historian, and the separation of the Holmes and Pethebridge material is probably a reflection of S S Mackenzies distinction between the earlier and later stages of the Administration in the Official History. REPORTS ETC. MISCELLANEOUS (Items [13]-[40]) Most of the items in this group are "miscellaneous" in nature, and were donated between 1956 and 1964 by individuals who served in the AN&MEF. The title of the divider card places prominence on the small proportion of material which was transferred through the Official Historian, probably because it was accessioned at a much earlier date. TELEGRAMS 1914-1916 (Items [41]-[44]) TELEGRAMS 1917-1919 (Items [45/1]-[46/6]) TELEGRAMS 1919-1923 (Items [47/1]-[52]) REPORTS MISCELLANEOUS 1914-1918 (Items [53]-[55/6]) REPORTS MISCELLANEOUS 1919-1922 (Items [56/1]-[59]) ARMY ARCHIVAL COLLECTION (Items [60/A1]-[60/G2]) Captured official German mail from SMS PLANET was accessioned from Army Archival Section in 1965 and remained unprocessed until 1991. It is unclear how and when these items came into the custody of the AN&MEF, although it would appear that German neutrals or temporarily retained officials were employed by the occupying Force soon after its arrival to identify items of captured mail and to provide a brief description in English. The items are accompanied by slips of paper, annotated with a brief, typed abstract of contents and the signature of the translator. One of the translators annotated his slips with the date, "21.8.14". The items have been restored to their "original" order, according to an alpha-numeric appendix number system written on each translation slip, and this numbering system is retained after the imposed number [60]. Gaps in the numbering system probably indicate the earlier presence of items now missing from the collection. A second numbering system was annotated in red ink onto envelopes as well as slips when the records passed into the custody of the Department of Defence (date unknown). This system employed a running number from 2548 to 2658, which has been listed after each item of captured mail in the inventory to AWM33. The translators abstracts, although varying in reliability, have been used as item titles in the inventory. SOURCE RECORDS, VOL X OFFICIAL HISTORY (Items [61]-[66/10]) This title is misleading, as Mackenzie used all of the records transferred through the Official Historian and the Department of Defence as source records for Volume X, "The Australians at Rabaul". Items within [62/1]-[65/12] arrived in different accessions between 1928 and 1940, and were arranged according to the chapter headings of the Official History by staff at the War Memorial Library. Items [66/1]-[66/10] arrived as a coherent group from Mackenzie in 1940. The divider card arrangement was retained during access examination in 1973-75, when sub-groups were broken down into discrete items and listed by title. An artificial single numbering system ([1]-[66/10]) was imposed at item level during access review in 1981. The series underwent final arrangement and description work in early 1991, and approximately 50 per cent of items were split into smaller physical parts to reduce their size and enhance their accessibility. The series now consists of 234 physical items ([1]-[66/10]).
