Radio Australia broadcasts, 1943-1945

Component identifier:

Series 4

Content Summary:

In late 1941 Sawer was recruited to join the Short Wave Propaganda Division of Radio Australia, as chief commentary writer and deputy to his friend W. McMahon Ball, whom he succeeded as head in 1944. The Division had been established after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, as a listening post to monitor and transmit war propaganda in the Japanese and Siamese, and later, French languages. For the duration of the war Sawer continued to teach constitutional and administrative law at Melbourne University in the mornings, and worked longer shifts at Radio Australia offices in Capel Court, Collins Street, Melbourne in the afternoon, and on evenings during emergencies.

This series consists of a comprehensive set of transcripts of incoming messages to Australia from Japanese and other enemy radio posts from 13 July 1943-27 February 1945. Also filed with the transcripts is a draft joint statement on the role of short wave radio for the Ministers of Information and External Affairs (c. 1944), and a report by R.I. Horne on the possibilities of developing Australian short-wave broadcasting to the United States (1945).

A single page of notes transcribing broadcasts made in 1940 is contained in Series 3.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The papers were donated to the Library by Sawer and his wife Nancy in four instalments in 1971, 1995, 1996 and 1998.

Names:

Sawer, Geoffrey, 1910-1996

Contents

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