What is the Australian War Memorial?

The Australian War Memorial is the national shrine to Australians who have died in war and on operational service. It stands at the head of ANZAC Parade in Canberra, looking back toward Parliament House across the lake. The Memorial combines a shrine, a war museum, and a research archive in a single sandstone building inspired by Byzantine cathedral architecture.

The Memorial was conceived by Charles Bean, the official First World War correspondent, who walked the battlefields of the Western Front and Gallipoli with Australian troops and resolved while still in Pozieres in 1916 that there should be a national memorial recording what they had done. The site was selected in 1925, the foundation stone laid in 1929, and the building opened on 11 November 1941, Remembrance Day, while Australian troops were fighting in the Second World War.

At the heart of the Memorial is the Hall of Memory, a domed chamber lined with a six-million-tile mosaic and stained glass windows depicting the figures of an airman, a sailor, a soldier, and a servicewoman. In the centre lies the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier, holding the remains of an unidentified Australian soldier recovered from the Adelaide Cemetery near Villers-Bretonneux in France and re-interred in 1993. Outside, the Roll of Honour records the names of more than 102,000 Australians who have died in service from the Sudan campaign of 1885 to current operations.

The Memorial's galleries display the relics of every conflict Australia has fought in: a Lancaster bomber from the Second World War, a Centurion tank from Vietnam, a Bushmaster from Iraq, uniforms, letters, weapons, and hundreds of paintings and photographs. The closing ceremony each evening, when the names of fallen soldiers are read aloud and The Last Post is played in the courtyard, draws regular visitors. A major redevelopment is extending the building to include exhibits on more recent conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and East Timor.