Names

Guide to the Army Unit Souvenir Collection. Collection number: Souvenirs 6

IDs

AWM00022

http://www.awm.gov.au/findingaids/special/Souvenirs/Units.xml

Descriptions

Contains souvenir histories, colour patches, nominal rolls, anniversary mementoes, and souvenirs of graduation ceremonies for particular army units.

SERIES 1: Army units, 1800-1913. There are currently no items in this series.; SERIES 2: Army units, 1914-1918. Description: The series includes short souvenir histories, colour patches, nominal rolls, and anniversary mementoes.; SERIES 3: Army units, 1919-1938. Description: The series includes unit magazines, and mess rules.; SERIES 5: Army units, 1946 - present. Description: The series includes invitations to annual reunions, brief unit histories, performance souvenirs, song sheets, and graduation ceremony programmes.

Army Unit Souvenirs: Souvenirs held in this collection include souvenir histories, booklets, colour patches, nominal rolls, anniversary mementoes, and souvenirs of graduation ceremonies for particular army units. They provide the history of an individual unit (battalion, regiment, squadron, ship) during a specific war, or sometimes throughout its existence. Frequently they contain information related to the unit, such as nominal rolls, rolls of honour, or lists of honours and awards.Color patches: This collection contains a number of printed reproductions of various unit colour patches, which were used between 1915 and 1921 by Australian forces raised specifically for overseas war service. A colour patch is a piece of cloth material which, through its colour and shape, was a simple but secure means of identifying the wearer's unit or arm of service and the formation to which it belonged. Combinations of colours and their arrangements indicated the function of a unit (e.g. headquarters, artillery, signals, infantry, engineers, medical). The shape of the colour patch indicated the level of a formation to which a unit belonged (e.g. division, corps, army). Commencing with the reorganised Citizen Forces in 1929, colour patches were used by all Australian Military Forces at home and abroad until 1949, when they were replaced with a system of embroidered regimental and corps titles, and formation signs.

Contact Senior Curator, Published & Digitised Collections, Australian War Memorial.

Open - Contact Senior Curator, Published & Digitised Collections, Australian War Memorial.

Selected additional and related material available at http://www.awm.gov.au/search/collections/ using the search terms described under 'subject _local'. Copies of many items from the Memorial's collections may also be purchased @ http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/sales/.

Subjects

Anzac Day souvenirs; Books; Colour patches; Greeting cards; Leaflets; Menus; Official Records; Photographs; Postcards; Private Records; Serials; Souvenirs; Troopship serials; Unit flags and colours; Unit histories; Unit rolls

Calendars; Greeting cards; Leaflets; Postcards; Programs

Military service

Coverage Temporal

1914

Related Collections

Dates

2012-05-30 23:41

2011-03-07 10:56