The Second World War Nominal Roll contains information from the service records of some one million individuals who served during World War Two. The number of individuals collected for the Nominal Roll include some 50,600 members of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), 845,000 from the Australian Army, and 218,300 members of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as well as approximately 3,500 merchant mariners.

Australians who served with other Commonwealth or Allied Forces are not included in this Nominal Roll. In addition, those who served in the Australian Women’s Land Army, the Australian Red Cross and philanthropic organisations, are not included in this Roll.

Search Tips

Search the nominal roll using the individual’s surname. In the majority of cases, the more information you include in your search request, the more success you will have in locating an individual.

The exception will be where an individual is more commonly known by their second or third given name, rather than their first given name. For example, the service record may have the name ‘Alphonse William Smith’. However, the individual may be more commonly known as ‘Bill Smith’. In this example, a search of the Nominal Roll for ‘Bill Smith’ may not deliver a satisfactory result. In this case it would be better to search by Smith, combined with a particular service.