Australian War Memorial and Museum
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A pre-eminent component of Australia’s capital city Canberra’s portfolio of museums and memorials. Originally intended as a WW1 memorial only, its scope was successively expanded to now commemorate all Australians who have died in military conflicts around the world up to the present day.This national institution is also still in flux as it is undergoing a major overhaul and expansion that is scheduled for completion in 2028.
More background info: Like the ANZAC memorials in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, this national war memorial was conceived of first while WW1 was still raging. It was officially initiated in the 1920s, but the Great Depression delayed the project. Construction began in the mid-1930s but it wasn’t until 1941 that the complex was unveiled.
As by then the Second World War was in full swing, it was soon decided to include that conflict in the memorial’s coverage as well. By 1975 the scope was extended to include all Australians who died in military conflicts across the world. It wasn’t until 1993 that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was installed inside the main Hall of Memory, the core of the memorial part.
The museum galleries were upgraded and modernized several times over and currently the complex is undergoing another major overhaul and expansion. Indeed, when I visited this place in August 2024 it felt like a building site in many parts (except for the WW1 and WWII galleries).
The overhaul is to include a new ANZAC Hall with the display of the museum’s original Lancaster bomber from WWII as well as a new section about Afghanistan.
And for the first time there will also be a section covering the so-called Australian Frontier War, i.e. the conflict of the British colonial settlers with Australia’s indigenous societies of Aboriginals, one of the darkest aspects of Australian history. All this work is scheduled to be completed in 2028.
What there is to see: A lot! Even though some parts were still closed for refurbishment, I struggled to get through the museum in the limited time I had (because I needed to catch the Explorer Loop bus – see below and under Canberra) so my visit felt a bit rushed. Hence I can’t get into the fullest details, but the following should provide a sufficient overview and selection of what there was to see at the time of my visit in August 2024.
The main memorial building from the 1930s is in a similar art deco style as that of the ANZAC Memorials in Sydney and Melbourne, i.e. quite imposing. Inside, the actual memorial part is on the upper level, while the museum galleries are housed in the space on the floors below.
The main part of the memorial is the domed Memorial Hall, inside of which are grand mosaics and other artwork as well as a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (you’d be forgiven for thinking that this must have been the original kernel of the complex, but in fact it was added only in 1993).
The courtyard has a reflecting pool with an eternal flame (installed in 1988). To the sides of the courtyard are colonnades and within these are the “Roll of Honour” panels (installed in 1961) with the names of over 100,000 Australian soldiers who perished in WW1. Thousands of red poppies were inserted into these panels when I was there. Dotted around are also sculptures and on the walls are the names of locations of wars Australia has been involved in, including comparatively recent ones like in Iraq, Afghanistan or East Timor.
When I visited the Australian War Memorial (AWM) there was a lot of construction work going on and some parts were closed for refurbishment/reconstruction. And this included the main entrance from the Parade Ground. Instead we had to use the eastern entrance to the side of the building that led straight into the museum part.
When the reconstruction work is finished the order in which visitors see what will likely be different from the order I experienced, and will include parts that were not yet open when I went in August 2024.
The various galleries of the museum are organized both chronologically (by conflicts from WW1 to the modern wars) as well thematically. The first part I entered was the Aircraft Hall. Here, various planes from different eras are on display, with a certain focus on WWII and the Korean War.
The largest aircraft in the museum’s possession, however, was not on display at the time of my visit: a well-preserved Lancaster bomber named George from WWII that was flown by Australian crews for the British Bomber Command between 1942 and 1944. This will go back on display in the newly rebuilt Anzac Hall (by the time you read this, that hall may already be open).
Adjacent to the Aircraft Hall is the so-called Hall of Valour. This is basically (not really a “hall” but) a cluster of display cabinets with the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses and George Crosses on display. Such medals leave me rather cold to be honest, so for me that was the most boring part of the museum. An exception was the part about Australians in the missions in Afghanistan, where there were also some artefacts on display (battle outfits of particular soldiers).
The first of the chronologically organized sections is that on WW1: Australia in the Great War. Australian and New Zealand troops (together forming ANZAC) were only involved in this war that mostly took place at the other end of the world out of loyalty to the British Empire, even though both countries had already long been independent. Still, many followed the call to arms in targeted recruitment campaigns launched Down Under.
The only local involvement of Australian troops in WW1 was the seizing of the German colonies in nearby Pacific territories, especially Papua New Guinea with the important port of Rabaul. They met little resistance.
That was very different in the pivotal role in the Australian experience of WW1 in Europe that the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign had. This was the first large-scale carnage of the war. Tens of thousands of Allied soldiers were slaughtered, and even more on the Turkish side, although the latter eventually prevailed. On display in the exhibition are, amongst many other things, the barrel of a piece of artillery, deliberately damaged by the Allies before leaving it behind on their retreat, which was initially taken by the Turkish army as a trophy, but somehow ended up here. Also on display is one of the original landing boats used by ANZAC troops. This was found abandoned in Gallipoli decades later and moved here.
The trench warfare on the front lines in Belgium and France (see especially Ypres and the Somme) is also a big topic in the exhibition. There are several scale model dioramas depicting the battlefields and trenches. On display too is part of a British tank and one section is dedicated to chemical warfare, by means of poison gas, used on both sides. Life in the trenches and dugouts as well as the medical side of the war are yet more topics covered.
An unusual exhibit is the damaged statue “Winged Victory”, originally part of a war memorial erected in 1919, soon after the end of WW1.
The second large main section of the museum is, unsurprisingly, the part about WWII. On display here are various vehicles, big guns, more planes and suchlike, including one of the infamous V1 flying bombs. There’s also a mock-up of an air-raid shelter and a light-and-sound simulation of being inside a bomber plane.
A particular Australian focus comes to the fore again in the special section about the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea, where the Australians managed to push back the forces of Imperial Japan that had taken much of the region, including Rabaul. But the Australian victory secured that Port Moresby did not fall into Japanese hands.
How WWII affected Australia at home is another strand in the exhibition, including mobilization, the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese and so on.
The Australian involvement in the North African theatre of the war is another topic covered, including the siege of Tobruk in Libya (where they were said to be trapped like rats, but later the Australians turned that into a symbol of bravery in the phrase “Rats of Tobruk”).
Another section is about the fate of Australians who had become POWs of the Japanese, including those then used for forced labour on the infamous Death Railway in Thailand/Burma.
Also included in the WWII part is a small section about the Holocaust, with displays including some personal belongings, striped concentration-camp clothing and cap plus wooden clogs worn by a Polish political prisoner at Dachau. The role Australian troops played in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen is another focal point.
Finally, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are presented as having led to the Japanese surrender in September 1945 (even though these days historians see the Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria as the primary reason). On display are some objects such as molten glass bottles found in the rubble of Hiroshima.
A third main section of the museum combines coverage of the Cold War with that of a number of proxy wars that Australia was involved in, especially the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Cold War overview is rather concise, but does include the nuclear testing undertaken by the British on the Montebello Islands and at Maralinga.
The Korean and Vietnam War sections include not only historical coverage but again also large exhibits such as an armoured personnel carrier (APC) and its airborne equivalent: a Bell UH-1 “Iroquois” (aka “Huey”) helicopter set into a life-size battle diorama with large blow-up photos of a helicopter operation against the Vietcong as the backdrop.
Adjacent to this section at the time of my visit was an exhibition about official war artists and their works. But I can’t say whether that may have been only a temporary exhibition.
Owing to reconstruction work, substantial sections of the interior were blocked off. What it will be like when the work is completed remains to be seen (see above). When I last checked the official website (in March 2026) it said the new “Anzac Hall” would open “in early 2026”, so maybe it is already open. On the other hand it also said that the Aircraft Hall was now temporarily closed, as are sections about Peacekeeping Missions and Modern Conflicts (including East Timor), which I already couldn’t see in 2024. I doubt I’ll ever make it back all the way down to Australia again, otherwise those sections would be worth a return visit to Canberra ...
Outside the memorial/museum building there are various monuments and sculptures in the landscaped gardens around the main building, but due to time constraints I could not visit them all and only saw the ones outside the Poppy Cafe to the south of the museum, where I waited for my Explorer Loop bus (see below). One of the sculptures was in honour of “explosive detection dogs” (EDDs) and their handlers!
All in all, going only by what I was able to see, I can still say that I found this a pretty impressive war museum, with a good number of original objects large and small, without them taking centre stage too often (as can be the case in this type of museum) and with text panels that balance detail and brevity very well so there isn’t too much information overload. Of course I cannot speak for the sections that were closed for reconstruction at the time of my visit; but one should guess they will only further enhance the overall quality of this museum.
Location: at the northern end of Anzac Parade at the foot of Mount Ainslie in the eastern part of Canberra, Australia.
Google Maps locator: [-35.2806, 149.1489]
Access and costs: A bit away from the livelier parts of the city, but not too hard to reach; free.
Details: If you’re staying in the livelier Braddon district (the closest Canberra comes to having a city centre) you could walk to the museum, which takes a bit over half an hour. Alternatively bus line 54 goes from the City Interchange to a dedicated bus stop for the memorial on Fairbairn Avenue (7 stops, ca. 10 minutes).
When I was in the capital I invested in the “Explorer Loop” hop-on, hop-off service (see under Canberra), on whose route the memorial was the first stop. And ca. two hours later I hopped back on to be taken to Parliament House.
If you have your own (rental) vehicle you can of course also drive to the memorial – there’s free outdoor as well as underground parking. The latter is off East Road and features EV charging stations. From here there’s access to the eastern entrance. The overground car park lies to the north-west of the memorial off Treloar Crescent/Remembrance Driveway and access to the memorial/museum is through the Sculpture Garden and the western entrance.
Time required: When I visited I had only a bit under two hours at my disposal, which wasn’t really enough time. I rushed through the exhibitions and quickly took photos of most of the text panels and read them only later at home. If you want to do this museum full justice you should allocate half a day, possibly longer when all the sections currently under reconstruction have opened.
Combinations with other dark destinations: Anzac Parade, which connects the memorial with the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, is lined on both sides by a series of large memorials that are also related to various wars and/or sections of the military (Army, Navy, etc.) – see under Canberra! I saw them as part of the “Explorer Loop” bus service on which the driver provided commentary about many of the monuments; so that was an added value.
The bus service also provided transport to the major other (dark) attractions of Canberra, in particular Parliament House, the Museum of Australian Democracy in the Old Parliament Building and the National Museum of Australia.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: Nothing much in the immediate vicinity, though just behind the memorial is Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve for those who like hiking. From the summit you get a very good view over the city and the axis from the AWM, along Anzac Parade and to the lake with the two (old and new) Parliament buildings on the other side. It’s possibly the No. 1 postcard view of Canberra.
If hiking up hills isn’t your thing, better head (back) to the entertainment, shopping and bars and restaurants district of Braddon ca. 2 km to the west of the memorial.
