The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has maintained service records on all who saw service with the RAAF, including the Women's Australian Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF), and the Women's Royal Australian Air Force (WRAAF) during a serviceman's or servicewomans's Air Force career. They can be a valuable source of information for genealogists and military historians. Most service files contain the following.
Enrolment application
This contains personal information including name, date and place of birth, address, religion etc, and a sworn oath or affirmation.
Attestation paper
This is a form filled in by the member on enlistment. Personal details include full name, nationality, place of birth, age on enlistment, training or civil occupation, previous military service, and a physical description.
Record of service form
This form is added to over the duration of the member's period of service. Details include personal information (including next of kin), qualifications, engagements, decorations and medals awarded, musterings, postings, promotions and casualties.
Service conduct sheet
This contains a list of any offences and punishment, or a 'Certified no entry' for each posting.
Other documents
Also found on many dossiers are Record of Leave cards, technical assessments (eg flying returns, reports on ability and suitability for promotion by Commanding Officer), correspondence with or about the member, and the text of any citations.
RAAF service records dating from the creation of the RAAF in 1923 until 1950 are held by the National Archives in series A9300 (officers) or A9301 (non-commissioned officers and other ranks) and are listed on the RecordSearch database.
Copies may be ordered online through RecordSearch, or by contacting the Archives' National Reference Service as follows:
National Archives of Australia
PO Box 7425
Canberra BC ACT 2610
Tel: 1300 886 881
Email: ref@naa.gov.au
Records relating to service later than 1950 are still held by the Department of Defence (in series A12372), however records that are over 30 years old are available through the National Archives. Forward inquiries providing details of the member you are researching (including full name, service number, and date of birth, enlistment or discharge, if known) to the National Archives.
Registrations of death or presumed death during war were made under the National Security (War Deaths) Regulations by the RAAF Casualty section rather than by a state government Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. To obtain death certificates contact:
Air Force Career Management Branch
Defence Personnel Executive
Department of Defence
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia
Some State Registrars hold copies of some of these registers, See Fact Sheet 89 – Births, deaths and marriages.
Casualty files are created for every member who is killed or severely wounded. As well as details of the incident, the files may contain reports from war graves investigators, eye-witnesses, survivors, the Red Cross and Squadron personnel.
Casualty files for 1921 to 1959 are held in series A705 consignment 15, and these have all been listed in our database, RecordSearch, which includes item-level information. If you are able to visit one of our reading rooms, the files can be located by a keyword search using the member's surname, then 'narrowing' the search result by the series number (A705). Refer to Fact Sheet 16 – Advanced searching in RecordSearch and Fact Sheet 17 – Using preferences and the thesaurus in RecordSearch for information about using RecordSearch.
Later casualty files are held in A703. Our reference staff will be able to assist you in locating these records. Usually this involves obtaining the files or the file references from the Air Force Office.
Courts of Inquiry were conducted to determine the cause of accidents and incidents. This includes the loss of aircraft during air operations or as a result of enemy action. As well as an inquiry report (the 'findings' of the Court of Inquiry), the files may contain reports from engineers, coroners, eye-witnesses, survivors, and squadron personnel.
Many of the files that covered straightforward or minor inquiries were destroyed, as they were of no ongoing use. Most of those that remain document unusual cases, such as those involving experimental aircraft, incidents where members of the public have been killed, cases which attracted publicity in the press, or when many lives were lost.
These files are held in A705 and A703. Generally you need to know the type of aircraft and the date of the incident in order to determine the file number. If you provide these details to reference staff in our Canberra office, they can determine the file number, and whether the file has survived.
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs has prepared online databases that include details of all who had RAAF service during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
Most RAAF units created their own records. Many of these have not survived because the information is also held in the Air Force Office, in the main RAAF correspondence file series, A705 and A703, or the classified series, A1196. Information about units can be found in the following series.
These are volumes of forms completed by the Commanding Officer of each unit. They are in the form of a monthly sheet, with each entry briefly covering the daily operations of the unit during the month. Most of these records are held in A9186, and an entry for each volume has been made on RecordSearch, which includes item-level information. They can be searched by the name or number of the unit and the date. Some remnants are held in AA1969/99.
 | RAAF Unit Records | 1937–61 | AA1969/100 | ||
| RAAF Unit records - remnants from the records of various Units | 1939–75 | A9519 | ||
| Records of various RAAF Units | 1959–67 | AA1968/248 | ||
| RAAF Unit records | 1948–70 | AA1971/614 | ||
You can obtain more information about the record series listed above (and the items within the series) fromRecordSearch, the Archives database. Follow the links in the series lists to go directly to information on that series. You can also use RecordSearch to find out about the agencies that created the records and to locate more records on your subject. You might also explore PhotoSearch to find out if there are photos pertaining to your subject.
RecordSearch and PhotoSearch are available online or in all Archives reading rooms. Reference staff are available in the reading rooms to help you, or email ref@naa.gov.au.
Comments or other feedback can be sent to archives@naa.gov.au
updated September 2006