Army service records – Fact sheet 136

The National Archives holds many records relating to Army service personnel. Records include personnel records, attestation sheets, National Service records, some wills and pay history cards. The table below sets out where the most significant records about Army service are located.

Army personnel records held in Melbourne

The National Archives Melbourne Office holds a range of additional records relating to Army personnel service. Many of these are listed below. The records listed under the heading ‘Australia’ cover enlistments for the whole of Australia, while those listed under ‘Victoria’ and ‘Victoria & New South Wales’ refer to enlistments from those States only.

Australia

	Title or description of record	Date range	Series number
	Army Militia service records and attestation documents	1901–40	B4747
	Permanent Military Forces (PMF) and Army Militia personnel dossiers	1901–70	B4717
	Service records and correspondence concerning Australians serving with other Imperial forces during World War I	1914–18	MT1487/1
	Wills of deceased members of the Military Forces – World War I	1914–18	MT297/14
	First World War munitions workers dossiers	1914–19	MT1139/1
	Troopship passenger rolls (arranged by ship) – (a) soldiers and/or dependants who left war zones during World War I; (b) ships routine orders; (c) reports on occurrences during voyages	1914–22	MT1384/1
	Registers of issued medals and badges – World War I and World War II	1914–45	MT1384/2
	Unit nominal rolls – World War I	1914–22	MT1384/3
	Applications to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force	1915–18	MT1486/1
	National service personal dossiers	1952–60	MT1128/1

Victoria

	Title or description of record	Date range	Series number
	Wills of deceased members of the Military Forces – World War II	1939–45	MT441/4
	Pay ledger and history cards, and allotment ledger cards – World War II	1940–49	MT415/1

Victoria & New South Wales

	Title or description of record	Date range	Series number
	Pay ledger cards of ex-servicemen (returned to Australia) – World War I	1914–20	MT297/1

Pay records

Pay records (sometimes files, but more commonly pay history cards) were maintained by the respective Army Military District, which were divided along state boundaries. Records will normally be held by the National Archives office in the state in which the member enlisted or served. Most records held relate to World War I or World War II service.

Pay records for Victorian and New South Wales enlistments are referred to in the table above. The fact sheets below refer to other holdings of pay records:

• Military records held in Hobart
• Army pay files held in Adelaide
• Army and RAAF pay records held in Perth

For more information

For further information on Army records see:

• Boer War records
• Colonial defence personnel records held in Melbourne
• Army administrative records held in Melbourne
• World War I and World War II service records