My Father's 2/8th Battalion Original Nominal Roll Cards Donated to AWM These are the unofficial cards kept by the battalion and left to the memorial when the headquarters closed in 2007. Recent acquisitions: nominal roll of 2/8th Battalion 07 January 2010 by Craig Berelle. From the collection, New acquisitions, News One Comment Official Records is pleased to announce the acquisition of original nominal roll cards of the 2/8th Australian Infantry Battalion into the National Collection. The nominal roll has been catalogued as AWM359 on the RecordSearch database. Card of Lt-Col John Mitchell DSO*, first CO of the 2/8th Battalion Provenance Each card presents a record of service for an individual unit member. Their creation during the Second World War appears to have been an initiative of the battalion itself; i.e. they were not required to keep them, nor are they on official forms. Responsibility fell to each of the four company clerks of the battalion to create, manage and safeguard the cards. At the end of the war, the cards were transferred to Secretary of the 2/8th Association. The collection was managed as a membership database of the Association until they ceased activity in 2007. Later that year the cards were offered to the Memorial. Content AWM359 consists of index cards, one for each individual of the battalion, upon which detailed service information is entered. The top section identifies the soldier’s regimental number, name and rank. The middle section (‘Remarks’) records the date and nature of his service. Typically, these consisted of routing, embarkation, battles and operations, injury, evacuation, promotion and home leave. The bottom of the card lists next of kin (relationship and address), date of birth, religion, civil occupation, date of enlistment, date of joining battalion and previous unit or regiment (if applicable). Men of 2/8th Battalion at Wewak in June 1945 093462 Arrangement The nominal roll is arranged alphabetically, reflecting the way the cards were used by the association secretary. They were subdivided as follows: Main roll (Items 1-8) Soldiers as members of the battalion for only a short time (9-10) Officers (11) Members killed in action (12) Members taken prisoner of war (13) In order to safeguard the handling of the collection, the cards have now been divided into manageable quantities and housed in archival quality containers. These records form an additional valuable source of information useful to researchers of individual soldiers or those researching the battalion as a whole. They should be used in conjunction with the official service records held by the National Archives of Australia and the 2/8th unit war diaries held by the Memorial.
Great post I find this very interesting, I wish all the Btns had thought of this, I do believe that some others also had this or similar. Good forethought by the men behind it as it seems to give a bit more detail than the average service record. See the Lt Col got sent to the permanent supernumerary list. Is that the list for Officers where they would play no more active part in the war unless they were placed back on active list? I know Blamey and others used this or something similar to get rid of some officers they did not like or when they thought they made him/them look bad. I know he threatened several senior Generals such as Rowell etc with this because they questioned his orders or intel etc.
