Acknowledgements

Numerous historians, genealogists, writers, universities, and individuals have diligently conducted research to identify Indigenous servicemen and women. Their efforts are documented in various articles, blogs, books, and papers, as well as radio publications.

As this site evolves and our research progresses, we will continually update the list of researchers to honour their contributions. This section of the website will remain dynamic as we strive to provide visitors with comprehensive resources to uncover the history of their veterans.

We extend our gratitude to each researcher for their dedication and service to preserving the history of our country.

Below is a list of some of those people, and we apologise if we have left anyone off at this time.

• A scheme for training Aborigines in NT – Major W I Mansbridge
• ABC – Indigenous Stories
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander volunteers for the AIF: the Indigenous response to World War One / Philippa Scarlett
• Aboriginal Anzac Research – ABC News
• Aboriginal ex-servicemen of Central Australia / [compiled by George Bray; edited by Kenny Laughton, researched by Pat Forster]
• Aboriginal ex-servicemen of Central Australia, 1995.
• Aboriginal Friends Association Adelaide – SA Museum
• Aboriginal history. No. 16, 1992. Special edition ‘Aborigines in the Services.’
• Aboriginal Service today – AWM
• Aboriginal Soldier buried in PNG – Leonard Ogilvie – ABC News
• Aboriginal Studies 19953 - Fighters from the Fringe. Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders recall the Second World War
• Aboriginal Women & Torres Strait Islanders – M Bell AWM
• Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the Second World War / by Robert A. Hall
• Aborigines in the defence of Australia / edited by Desmond Ball
• Age  11/7/1940, p6 The Aborigines
• AIATSIS – Australian Inland Mission, Dawn, Our Aim, The Australian Evangel - Magazines
• Ainslee Roberts & Charles Mountford – The dawn of time
• Albert Burke – ABC News
• Althorp, John. Skewey: Hugh Tripp, 2015
• Angus Melbourne, 31/5/1940, p5 – Aborigines enlist – Dimboola
• Anita Heiss – Bila Warrudhanggalangdhuray
• Attwood, B., & Markus, A. (1999). The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights: A Documentary History. St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
• Australia. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. (1997). Bringing them home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
• Australian War Memorial publishes first list of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander soldiers who served in the Vietnam War – James Vyver
• Australian War Memorial publishes history of Indigenous service – Sam Provost
• Australian Women’s Land Army Association NSW
• AWLA- VWLA, Womens Register
• Bakker, Peter. 'Serving country': William Charles Westbury (1879-1936), 2018. 
• Ball, Desmond (ed). Aborigines in the defence of Australia, 1991.
• Barmah pilgrimage honours Indigenous soldiers in WW1 Lighthorse enactment, ABC News
• Barry Stone -The Squatters
• BCOF – Names – NAA
• Beaumont, Joan. Australia's war, 1939-1945, 1996. (Chapter 3)
• Belinda Mason - Serving Country
• Berndt, R. M., & Berndt, C. H. (1987). End of an Era: Aboriginal Labour in the Northern Territory. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Burnett, J. (Writer). (1990) [videocassette].
• Bita Paka – AWM
• Boer War Soldiers - ABC News
• Bowen Independent Qld, 29/5/1917, P2 – Half-Caste Enlisting
• Boys from Barambah – Mark Newman
• Bruce Chatwin – The song lines
• Bruce Elder – Blood on the Wattle
• Bruce Pascoe – Dark Emu
• Cadzow, Allison & Beaumont, Joan (eds). Serving our country: indigenous Australians, war, defence and citizenship, 2018.  
• Cadzow, Allison & Jebb, Mary Anne (eds). Our mob served: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories of war and defending Australia, 2019. 
• Catherine Freeman and Deborah Mailman – Going Bush
• Coastwatchers – Names NAA
• Cochrane, Peter. Australians at war, 2001.
• D J & B P Elphick - Riverina Aborigines
• D. Beattie-Burnett (Producer), No Bugles, No Drums: Seven Emu Productions in Association with Australian Television Network. Egan, T. (1996). Justice all their own: The Caledon Bay and Woodah Island killings 1932-1933. Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press.
• David Denham – The Colonial Australians
• David Huggonson - Tasmania's Anzac Pride - Koori Mail 21/4/2004
• David Ireland – Burn – Novel
• David Marr – Killing for Country
• Deadly Story Website
• Defence of Oz – ANU
• Derek Fowell - Alice Lovett,  biography (p. 38, 42)
• Derek Fowell - Bill Edwards,  biography (p. 52, 54)
• Derek Fowell - Bill Egan, biography (p. 30, 31)
• Derek Fowell - Connie Alberts,  biography (p. 43, 46)
• Derek Fowell - Dan Cooper,  biography correspondence (p. 9, 12)
• Derek Fowell - George Birkett, biography (p. 24, 29)
• Derek Fowell - Hannah and James Lovett,  biography correspondence (p. 1, 4)
• Derek Fowell - Harry Saunders,  biography (p. 23)
• Derek Fowell - Jack Kennedy,  biography (p. 32, 33)
• Derek Fowell - Jackson Stewart,  biography (p. 15, 18)
• Derek Fowell - Lester Marks Harradine,  biography (p. 55)
• Derek Fowell - Linda Lester Nihill, biography (p. 34)
• Derek Fowell - Marge Tucker, MBE,  biography (p. 35, 37)
• Derek Fowell - Merve Bundle,  biography (p. 62, 63)
• Derek Fowell - Norman Herbert Franklin,  biography (p. 51)
• Derek Fowell - Reg Rawlings, Henry Thorpe and the Firebrance Brothers, biography (p. 5, 8)
• Derek Fowell - Reg Saunders,  Chris Saunders  , Glenda Humes  , biography oral history (p. 19, 22)
• Derek Fowell - Stewart Murray,  biography diary (p. 48, 50)
• Derek Fowell - The Nelson Family,  biography (p. 11, 12)
• Derek Fowell - The Soldiers of Lake Tyers Mission,  biography (p. 13, 14)
• Desmond Ball – Aborigines in the Defence of Australia
• Desmond Crump – Researching Indigenous Soldiers in WWI – Qld Library
• Djambatj Mala – Why warriors lay down and die
• Dr Noah Riseman – Serving their Country,  Short history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders service in the Australian Army
• Dr Noah Riseman & Richard Trembath – Defending Country
• Fighters from the fringe: Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders recall the Second World War / Robert A. Hall
• Fiona Hamilton - Aboriginal Women’s Heritage Brungle & Tumut
• Forever warriors: this book honours all Western Australian Indigenous men & women who served in all conflicts / Jan (Kabarli) James
• Frederick Eades ABC News
• Frontier Wars – Michaela Hambrett & Mollie Gorman
• Further newspaper articles may be identified by using the following: Newspaper index: references to Aborigines in Adelaide newspapers, 1836-1940, 1989.
• Ganter, R. (2006). Mixed Relations: Asian-Aboriginal Contact in North Australia. Crawley, WA: University of Western Australia Press.
• Gary Oakleys Story
• Geoffrey Blainey – The Triumph of the Nomads
• George Aiston and George Horne – 1924 – Savage life in central Australia
• George Bray – Aboriginal ex-servicemen of Central Australia
• Gordon, Harry. The embarrassing Australian: the story of an Aboriginal warrior, 1965.
• Graham, T. (Writer). (1994). Ka-wayawayama: Aeroplane Dance [DVD]. T. Graham (Producer): Film Australia.
• Haebich, A. (2000). Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800-2000. Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
• Hall, R. (1980). Aborigines, the Army and the Second World War in Northern Australia. Aboriginal History, 4 (part 1), 73-95. 
• Hall, R. (1995). Fighters from the Fringe: Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders Recall the Second World War. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
• Hall, R. (1997). The Black Diggers: Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the Second World War (2nd ed.). Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
• Hall, Robert A. Fighters from the fringe: Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders recall the Second World War, 1995.
• Hall, Robert A. The black Diggers: Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the Second World War, 1995.
• Herald Melbourne 30/4/1918, p8 – Aborigines Enlist
• History Australia. vol.. 10, no. 2, 2013. Noah Riseman. ‘Racism, indigenous people, and the Australian armed forces in the post-Second World War era.’
• History of the Volunteer Rifles – Lt Col Young
• Honouring Indigenous War Graves Incorporated: recognising the services and sacrifices of our "Indigenous veterans"
• Howard, A. (1990). You'll be Sorry! Sydney and Melbourne: TARKA Publishing.
• 'I am the forgotten soldier': the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander War Memorial appeal, 2012.
• Ian Downs – 1999 – The New Guinea Volunteer Rifles 1939-1943
• Ian Smith – HMAS Koala
• Indigenous Australians at War – DVA
• Indigenous Australians at War – M Bell AWM
• Indigenous Australians in service during WWII – DVA
• Indigenous POW Gunner Percy Suey – Sarah Hawke
• Indigenous Sacrifices – ABC News
• Indigenous Service – M Bell AWM
• Indigenous service: investigating the wartime experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from the First World War to the present: a resource for secondary schools / written by Jennet Cole-Adams and Judy Gauld; contributing researchers: Paola Balla and Mat Jakobi
• Indigenous Servicemen ABC News
• Indigenous soldiers of the First World War and the Stolen Generation – Kylie Blundell
• Indigenous Volunteers in the first AIF M Bell AWM
• InfoKoori is an index of articles found in the Koori Mail, with some references to biographical information found in other Aboriginal community publications, including Our Aim, Dawn and New Dawn.
• Ion Idriess – Men of the Jungle
• Jackamos, Alick. Forgotten heroes: Aborigines at war from the Somme to Vietnam Torres Strait Islander women and the Pacific War, 1993.
• Jackomos, A., & Fowell, D. (1993). Forgotten Heroes: Aborigines at War from the Somme to Vietnam. South Melbourne, VIC: Victoria Press.
• Jan Kalbarli James - Forever Warriors
• Jan Wositzky – Born under the paperbark tree
• John Burns Vietnam Soldier
• Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society. vol. 79, nos 3-4, 1993. David Huggonson. ‘Aboriginal diggers of the 9th Brigade First AIF.’
• Kartinyeri, Doreen. Ngarrindjeri Anzacs, 1996.
• “Kath Walker,” in papers of Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Box 30.
• Kidd, R. (2006). Trustees on Trial: Recovering the Stolen Wages. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
• Kinchela Boys Home website - kinchelaboyshome.org.au
• Korean Indigenous Veterans M Bell AWM
• Legacy of Indigenous soldiers lives on in the Pilbara – ABC News
• Lets Talk-Remembering the forgotten Anzacs-Reconciliation Australia
• Marcia Langton – Welcome to Country Handbook
• Margaret Powel – Qld Library Indigenous Research in WWI
• Mark Tedeschi QC – Murder at Myall Creek
• Maynard, J. (2018). The First World War. In J. Beaumont & A. Cadzow (Eds.), Serving Our Country: Indigenous Australians, war, defence and citizenship (pp. 74-93). Sydney: New South Wales.
• Michael Bell – The Black Prince of Gallipoli
• Mitchell Library – Portrait Collection Aboriginal Employment Coy
• Mittagong Farm home for Boys – State Library of NSW
• Montevideo Maru Survivors – PNG Association of Australia Inc
• Montevideo Maru Transcription
• Monty Walgar – Jinangga
  Moore, J. (Writer). (2000) [videocassette]. M. Cummins & J. Moore (Producer), Thomson of Arnhem Land: Film Australia in association with John Moore Productions.
• Murriyang Song of time - Stan Grant
• NAIDOC 2014 – The history of Indigenous Australian Service men and women – Latrobe University
• New Guinea Volunteer Rifles – Diaries Dec 1941, Jan-May 1942, Nominal Roll, Jan-March 1942, Reports Feb 54-56. AWM
• Newman, Lawrence, Scarlett and Schneider - The Boys from Barambah
• Ngarrindjeri Anzacs / Doreen Kartinyeri
• NITV – Who were the Black Diggers.
• Noah Riseman – 2018 – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service in WWII
• Noah Riseman – Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders Service in WWII
• Norforce-ABC News
  North-Western Courier Narrabri-24/6/1940, 91 – Aboriginals Enlisting
• NT Recon Force War Diary Jan 1946 – AWM
• On Anzac Day – Stan Grant
• Osborne, E. (1997). Torres Strait Islander Women and the Pacific War. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
• Pacific Island Regiment A-Z Names – NAA
• Papua New Guinea – Missing in Action - AWM
• Papua New Guinea Defence Force – Emma Browne
• Papua New Guinea experiences of the Pacific War – Sylvia Cockburn
• Participation in the First World War. In D. Monger, S. Murray, & K. Pickles (Eds.), Endurance and the First World War: Experiences and Legacies in New Zealand and Australia (pp. 178-195). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Patricia Davis Hurst – Woorabinda Reserve Qld
• Paul Haw & Margaret Munro - Footprints across the Loddon Plains
• Paul Mackett - Mapoon Mission
• Paul Mackett – Tarooma Settlement Qld
• Philippa Scarlett – Indigenous Histories, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Volunteers for the AIF
  Pike, Betty. Interview with Noah Riseman. 12 April 2011. Melbourne.
• PNG Resources – Angels and Victims – Jim Burrowes
• PNGVR – Website
• PNGVR Its Formation – Lt Col N P Madden MBE
• Powell, A. (2007). The Shadow's Edge: Australia's Northern War (Rev. ed.). Darwin, NT: Charles Darwin University Press.
• Private Fredrick Beale, Private George Henry Beale
• Pye, J., M.S.C. (1977). The Tiwi Islands. Darwin: J.R. Coleman Pty Ltd.
• Qld Aboriginal soldier Peter Craigie -  ABC News
• Rabaul Nurses – Claire Deglon Marriott
• Rabaul POW Transported to Japan – NAA
• Ramsland, John. Remembering Aboriginal heroes: struggle, identity and the media, 2012. (Chapter 6, Reg Saunders)
• Ray Kerkhove – How they fought
• Reginald Saunders – ABC News
• Remembering Indigenous soldiers at Beersheba – ABC News
• Richard Broome – Aboriginal Australians – 2nd edition
• Richard Broome – Aboriginal Australians – 5th edition
• Richard White - Inventing Australia
• Rintoul, S. (1993). The Wailing: A National Black Oral History. Port Melbourne, VIC: William Heinemann Australia.
• Riseman, N – Journal of Military and Strategic Studies – Volume 19, Issue 2. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service in the Second World War.
• Riseman, N. (2012). Defending Whose Country? Indigenous Soldiers in the Pacific War. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
• Riseman, N. (2014). Enduring Silences, Enduring Prejudices: Australian Aboriginal
• Riseman, N. (2017). Evolving Commemorations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service. Wicazo Sa Review, 32(1), 80-101. 
• Riseman, N. (2018). Ex-Service Activism after 1945. In J. Beaumont & A. Cadzow (Eds.),
  Riseman, Noah. In defence of country: life stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander servicemen & women, 2016. 
• Robert Hall – The Black Diggers
• Robert Hughes – Fatal Shore
• Robyn Howell – 76 Aboriginal Soldiers 2002 Northern Regional Library Moree
• Rod Pratt – Biographical Register of Qld Aborigines who served in the Great War 1914-1918
• Rohan Wilson – The roaming party
• Role of Indigenous Women – DVA
  RSL Australia – Reveille
• Russel Ward – The Australian Legend
• Sabretache, vol. 34, no. 1, 1993. Bruce Topperwien. ‘Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders who assisted the Australian Defence Force in northern Australia during World War Two.’ (A list of previously unacknowledged people, not formally enlisted in the Defence Forces but who aided in the defence of Australia)
• Sabretache. vol. 31, nos 1-4, 1990. Rod Pratt. ‘Queensland's Aborigines in the first AIF.’
• Sally Morgan - My Place
• Selected South Australian newspapers, published prior to 1955, have been digitised as part of the National Library of Australia’s Trove website.
• Serving Our Country: Indigenous Australians, War, Defence and Citizenship (pp. 261281). Sydney: New South Wales.
• Sheffield, R. S. & Riseman, N. (2019). Indigenous Peoples and the Second World War: The Politics, Experiences and Legacies of War in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Simpsonhafen website – First World War Official Histories – Rabaul
• Skelly Brothers - 3Sep1939 - 50 Aboriginals from NT
• Smith, H. (2001). Minorities and the Australian Army: Overlooked and Underrepresented? In P. Dennis & J. Grey (Eds.), A Century of Service: 100 Years of
  Smith, Ian. For love of Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service personnel from South Australia since Federation, 2022.
• Soldier settlement after the First World War – AWM
• Soldiers of PNG fought many battles – Gregory J Ivey.
• South Australian Aboriginal Personnel – Reconciliation SA
• St Marys Mission Church
• Stan Grant – Talking to my country
• Stan Grant – Tears of Strangers
• Stan Grant – The Australian Dream
• Stan Grant – The queen is dead
• Stories Indigenous service 2022 – DVA
• Sun Sydney, 25/5/0940,p3 – Aborigines Enlist
• Sun-Pictorial – 13 Aborigines enlist 16/7/1940 p21
• Survival in our own land – Christobel Mattingley
• Survival in our own land: 'Aboriginal' experiences in 'South Australia' since 1836 told by Nungas and others; edited and researched by Christobel Mattingley, co-edited by Ken Hampton, 1988. (pages 285-288)
• Tandee Wang & Thomas J Rogers – Bushman or Boer – Australian identity in a White Man’s War
• Tasmanian Aboriginals  ABC News
• Tasmanian Aborigines in the First World War – Andrea Gerrard
• The Australian Army. The 2001 Chief of Army’s Military History Conference (pp. 129149). Canberra: Army History Unit, Department of Defence.
• The Black Prince of Gallipoli – M Bell AWM
• The forgotten soldiers of the Boer War – Claire Hunter AWM
• The hidden stories of First Nations Veterans – Tahnee Jash and Carly Williams
• The lost souls of Condah – Tony Wright
• The Oxford companion to Australian military history, 2008.
• The Parramatta Girls Training School – https://clan.org.au
• The Queenslander
• The War Graves Project – https://www.twgpp.org
• The Western Australian Museum – No Less Worthy
• They Served with Honour – Dept of Aboriginal Affairs WA.
• Thomson, D., with Peterson, N. (2003). Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land (Rev. ed.). Carlton, VIC: Miegunyah Press.
• To locate more contemporary journal and newspaper articles, access the State Library's eResources.
• Too dark for the Light Horse: an exhibition of photographs & documents depicting Aboriginal involvement in the Australian Army at the Albury Regional Museum, August 11th - September 27th / compiled by David Huggonson
• Torres Strait – Independent South West Pacific – MIA
• TSLIB War Diaries – Mar-Dec 1943, January 1944, Jan-May 1944, June-Dec 1944, Jan-Aug 1945. – AWM
• Uncovering service of Indigenous women in WWII – Chelsea Heaney – AWM
• Various Authors – Being Whitefella – Edited by Duncan Graham
• Various Authors – Indigenous Australian Voices
• Voices from the war Project New Guinea
• Walker, Richard. Curtin's cowboys: Australia's secret bush commandos, 1986.
• Wallaga Lake Aboriginal Settlement – South Coast History Website
• War Diaries – 1 NGIB, 1 PIB, 2 NGIB.
• Warangesda Mission Website – Camp of Mercy Book by Beverley (Gulumbali) & Don Elphick, Canberra
• Wartime. issue 76, (Spring) 2016. Special edition 'Defending country: Indigenous service'. Includes 'Under the crescent moon' an account of Roland Carter (Point McLeay / Raukkan) and Douglas Grant (NSW) who were each taken prisoner during WWI, and interned at Wundsdorf-Zossen, near Berlin
• Wartime. vol. 12, (Summer) 2000. Vanessa Seekee. ‘One ilan man': the Torres Strait Light Infantry.’
• Watkin Tench – 1788
• Wedge Brothers - Regional Force Surveillance Unit
• Within AIATSIS online, indigenous newsletters such as the Native Title Newsletter.
• Woman on nations highest ranking Indigenous soldiers – ABC News