'Owning' Military History

[Tony Wheeler]

"This raises the question (more a moral one than anything else) as to the extent that private individuals should be allowed to ‘own’ Australia’s military history for personal gratification."


Didn't this question get sorted in the Cold War? You know, the right to own personal property? As opposed to everything belonging to the State?

In any case the Colonel's proposition would only have merit insofar as the State could be trusted to preserve military history more successfully than the individual. On that score it's the Colonel himself who provides the most compelling argument for private individual ownership, by comparing the fate of records held in private individual hands to those NOT in private individual hands:

1. Records NOT in private individual hands: "there are three requests on the 3 Cav site for information about the ‘history’ of M113A1s that have been allocated to RSLs. One would have expected the log books to accompany the vehicles. I’ve suggested that the RSLs ask Defence for them. If Defence hasn’t included the log books as part of the vehicles, then one hopes that they’ve been sent to Archives."

In other words, the fate of these records is surrounded by confusion, uncertainty, diffusion of responsibility, bureaucratic bungling, and downright disinterest. Result: RECORDS LOST OR DESTROYED.

2. Records in private individual hands: "with the Centurion log books...the log books were considered part of the vehicle and therefore accompanied the tanks sold to the public...the purchaser of the tanks later on-sold all the log books as a single lot to a private collector"

In other words, these records have been safely preserved, by separating them from the tanks where their safety under new ownership could not be guaranteed. Furthermore, they've been kept together so that the body of information they collectively represent can also be analyzed and documented.

Of course, the Colonel's concern is not with preservation of records, but access to information. Certainly it will be easier to access information catalogued in public archives, insofar as it may exist, than to track down individuals in possession of information NOT held in public archives. Just as it will be easier to access objects on display at AWM than to track down individuals owning objects NOT on display at AWM. However, what seems to have escaped the Colonel, despite the RSL log book lesson, is that if it were not for these individuals, the objects and information of interest to him WOULD NOT EVEN EXIST!