Alex Miles from Mooloo via Gympie visited me in Townsville in September 2018.  He brought with him two special items associated with the Mooloo Italian prisoners of war.  His childhood neighbour Noela White (nee Wyllie) had a cellophane belt made by one of the POWs and Alex had a coin which Francesco Ciaramita had started to shape into a ring.  Both Noela and Alex felt that the items needed a ‘home’ where they could be appreciated as part of the history of Italian prisoners of war in Queensland.  A decision was made to dontate them to the Australian War Memorial (AWM) and I had the honour of beginning the process.

While the AWM had similar items in their collection, these items were made by Australian soldiers.  An application was made to the AWM to see if members of the acquistion team were interested in the items, this is stage one of the donation process.

Stage 2 was the sending of the items with historical details to the acquistion team for further investigation and evaluation.

Stage 3 followed with the  items being formally accepted into the AWM collection.

22nd November 2018

Dear Joanne,

Thank you kindly for returning the Deed of Gift. I am glad to let you know that the items you have donated are now officially part of the National Collection.

Thank you for your generous support of the Australian War Memorial.

Yours sincerely,

Aiden Silvestro

Acquisitions Officer | Registration

A special first