Charles Bean Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean ( 18 November 1879 – 30 August 1968 ) , usually identified as C . E . W . Bean , was an Australian schoolmaster , judge ' s associate , barrister , journalist , war correspondent and historian . Bean is renowned as the editor of the 12 - volume " Official History of Australia in the War of 1914 – 1918 " . Bean wrote Volumes I to VI himself , dealing with the Australian Imperial Force ( AIF ) at Gallipoli , France and Belgium . Bean was instrumental in the establishment of the Australian War Memorial , and of the creation and popularisation of the ANZAC legend . Bean was born in Bathurst , New South Wales . In 1889 , his family moved to England where he was educated , firstly at Brentwood School in Essex , of which his father was headmaster , then from 1894 at Clifton College , Bristol , before winning a scholarship in 1898 to Hertford College , Oxford . He returned to Australia in 1904 and worked as a lawyer until June 1908 when he joined " The Sydney Morning Herald " as a reporter . Gallipoli . In September 1914 , Bean was appointed official war correspondent with the AIF troops . He was selected by ballot as the official war correspondent , narrowly beating Keith Murdoch . He was given the honorary rank of captain in the AIF and followed closely in the tracks of all the Australian infantry ' s campaigns . Bean landed at Anzac Cove at 10am on 25 April 1915 , a few hours after the first troops had landed and he remained on the peninsula for most of the campaign , enduring the same squalid conditions suffered by the soldiers . As a war correspondent , Bean ' s copy was detailed , accurate and also dull — he lacked the populist style of British correspondent Ellis Ashmead - Bartlett who produced the first eyewitness report from Gallipoli which was published in Australian newspapers on 8 May . As the sources for reports increased , papers such as " The Age " and " The Argus " stopped carrying Bean ' s copy due to its unappealing style . In early May , Bean travelled to Cape Helles with the 2nd Infantry Brigade for the Second Battle of Krithia . When the brigade was called to advance late in the afternoon on 8 May , Bean went with them from their reserve position to the starting line , under shrapnel fire the whole way . He was recommended for the Military Cross after retrieving a wounded soldier but was ineligible as his rank was only honorary . Also under fire , he carried a number of messages to the brigade commander , Brigadier General James M ' Cay , close behind the front line . He made numerous trips across the battlefield , delivering water and helping to bring in the wounded , including commander of the 6th Battalion , Lieutenant Colonel Walter McNicoll . On the night of 6 August , Bean was struck in the leg by a stray Turkish bullet , while following the column of Brigadier General John Monash ' s 4th Infantry Brigade at the start of the Battle of Sari Bair . Despite the wound , he refused to be evacuated from the peninsula . He left Gallipoli for good on the night of 17 December , two nights before the final evacuation of Anzac . He would return in 1919 with the Australian Historical Mission . Western Front . When the Australian infantry moved to France in 1916 , Bean followed . He continued reporting from close to the front line of all but one of the engagements involving Australian troops , and in that sense saw more action than any other Australian in the First World War . He observed first hand the " fog of war " , the problems in maintaining communication between the commanders in the rear and the front line troops , and between isolated units of front line troops , and problems coordinating activities with other arms of the service ( such as artillery ) and with allied forces on each flank . He reported on the degree to which direct reports given by front line troops ( and captured German soldiers ) could be misleading given their limited view of the battlefield and the effect of the shock of fierce fighting and devastating artillery fire . It was during this period that Bean began planning for the post - war preservation of the Anzac legacy via the establishment of a permanent museum and memorial , and by the collection of records relating to Australia ' s war effort . On 16 May 1917 the Australian War Records Section was established under the command of Captain John Treloar to manage the collection of documents and relics . Attached to the section were members of the Australian Salvage Corps who would select items of interest from the battlefield detritus they recovered for scrap or repair . Treloar was subsequently appointed the first director of the Australian War Memorial in 1920 . He had a 15 pound clothing allowance and spent this on making what would become his ' distinctive outfit . ' He was also equipped with a horse and saddlery . Private Arthur Bazley was assigned as Bean ' s batman , and the two soon became friends . Bean ' s influence grew as the war progressed and he lobbied ( along with Keith Murdoch , father of Rupert Murdoch ) unsuccessfully against the appointment of General John Monash to the command of the Australian Corps in 1918 . He disliked Monash for not fitting his ideal of Australian manhood ( Monash was of Jewish background ) and his promotion of his men — he had earned Monash ' s wrath for failing to publicise his brigade at Anzac — which Bean viewed as a penchant for self - promotion and wrote in his diary , " We do not want Australia represented by men mainly because of their ability , natural and inborn in Jews , to push themselves . " Bean favoured the appointment of the Australian Chief of General Staff , Brudenell White , the meticulous planner behind the successful withdrawal from Gallipoli , or General Birdwood , the British commander of the Australian forces at Gallipoli . Despite his opposition to the appointment of Monash , Bean later acknowledged Monash ' s success in the role , noting that he had made a better Corps commander than a Brigade commander ( and as an aside admitting that his role in trying to influence the decision had been improper ) . Bean ' s brother was an anaesthetist and served as a major in the Medical Corps on the Western Front . Post - war . In 1916 the British War Cabinet had agreed to grant Dominion official historians access to the war diaries of all British Army units fighting on either side of a Dominion unit , as well as all headquarters that issued orders to Dominion units , including the GHQ of the British Expeditionary Force . By the end of the war , the Committee of Imperial Defence ( CID ) were less than willing to divulge this information , possibly fearing it would be used to criticise the conduct of the war . It took six years of persistence before Bean was allowed access and a further three years for a clerk to make copies of the enormous quantity of documents . Bean therefore had available to him resources that were denied to all British historians who were not associated with the Historical Section of the CID . Bean was unwilling to compromise his values for personal gain or political expediency . He was not influenced by suggestions and criticism from British official historian , Sir James Edmonds about the direction of his work . Edmonds reported to the CID that , " The general tone of Bean ' s narrative is deplorable from the Imperial standpoint . " For his maverick stance , it is likely that Bean was denied decorations from King George V , despite being recommended on two occasions during the war by the commander of the Australian Corps . Bean was not motivated by personal glory ; many years later when he was offered a knighthood , he declined . In 1919 Bean led the Australian Historical Mission back to the Gallipoli peninsula to revisit the battlefield of 1915 . For the first time he was able to walk over ground where some of the famous battles were fought such as Lone Pine and at the Nek , where he found the bones of the light horsemen still lying where they fell on the morning of 7 August 1915 . He also instructed the Australian Flying Corps , one of the few Australian units involved in the occupation forces in Germany , to collect German aircraft to be returned to Australia ; they obtained a Pfalz D . XII and an Albatros D . Va . Upon his return to Australia in 1919 , Bean commenced work with a team of researchers on the " Official History of Australia in the War of 1914 – 18 ; " and the first volume , covering the formation of the AIF and the landing at Anzac Cove , was published in 1921 . It would be 21 years before the last of the 12 volumes ( Volume VI ) was published . Bean personally wrote the first 6 volumes covering the Army involvement . In 1946 he published " Anzac to Amiens " , a condensed version of the Official History — this was the only book to which he owned the copyright and received royalties . Bean ' s style of War History was different to anything that had gone before . Partly reflecting his background as a journalist , he concentrated on both the ' little people ' and the big themes of the First World War . The smaller size of the Australian Army contingent ( 240 , 000 ) allowed him to describe the action in many cases down to the level of individuals , which suited Bean ' s theme that the achievement of the Australian Army was the story of those individuals as much as it was of generals or politicians . Bean was also fascinated by the Australian character , and used the history to describe , and in some way create , a somewhat idealised view of an Australian character that looked back at its British origins but had also broken free from the limitations of that society . Bean ' s approach , despite his prejudices and his intention to make the history a statement about society , was to meticulously record and analyse what had happened on the battlefields . His method was generally to describe the wider theatre of war , and then the detailed planning behind each battle . He then moved to the Australian commander ' s perspectives and contrasted these with the impressions from the troops at the front line ( usually gathered by Bean ' on the spot ' ) . He then went further and quoted extensively from the German ( or Turkish ) records of the same engagement , and finally summarised what had actually happened ( often using forensic techniques , going over the ground after the war ) . All throughout he noted the individual Australian casualties where there was any evidence of the circumstances of their death . Even with that small contingent of 240 , 000 ( of whom 60 , 000 died ) this was a monumental task , particularly as the Australians had been used , much as the Canadians , as shock troop s by the British command wherever the line was most threatened , or where there was need to mount an attack . Bean also — uniquely — reported ultimately on his own involvement in the manoeuvring around command decisions regarding Gallipoli , and the appointment of the Australian Corps Commander , and did not spare himself some criticism with the wisdom of hindsight . Bean ' s style of writing profoundly influenced subsequent Australian war historians such as Gavin Long ( who was appointed on Bean ' s recommendation ) , and the Second World War series , describing the battles of North Africa , Crete , New Guinea and Malaya , retain Bean ' s commitment to telling the story of individuals as well as the bigger story . The tradition continued through the history of Australia ' s involvement in the Korean War , and up to the history of Australia ' s involvement in the South - east Asian conflicts , currently in preparation ( 8 of 9 volumes published as of 2008 ) . Contribution to the Australian War Memorial . Charles Bean played an essential role in the creation of the Australian War Memorial . After experiencing the First World War as the official Australian War Historian , he returned to Australia determined to establish a public display of relics and photographs from the conflict . Bean dedicated an enormous portion of his life to the development of the Australian War Memorial , now one of Australia ' s major cultural icons . It was during the time spent with the First Australian Imperial Force in Europe , that Bean started thinking seriously about the need for an Australian war museum . A close friend of his during this time , A . W . Bazley , recalled , " on a number of occasions he talked about what he had in his mind concerning some future Australian war memorial museum " . Bean envisioned a memorial that would not only keep track of and hold records and relics of war , but would also commemorate the Australians who lost their lives fighting for their country . In 1917 , as a result of Bean ' s suggestions to the Defence Minister , Senator George Pearce , The Australian War Records Section was established . The AWRS was set up to guarantee that Australia would have its own collection of records and relics of the First World War being fought . This department arranged for the collection of relics from the field , and the appointment of official war photographers and artists . Many of the numerous relics collected , and photographs and paintings produced , can be seen in the Australian War Memorial today . The quality of paintings from the First World War is attributed in large part to the " quality control " exercised by Bean . The basis of the building known today as the Australian War Memorial was completed in 1941 . The Memorial ' s website describes the building plan as " a compromise between desire for an impressive monument to the fallen and a budget of only £250 , 000 " . Bean ' s dream of a memorial in recognition of Australian soldiers who fought in the Great War had finally been realised . However , when it was realised that the Second World War was of a magnitude to match that of the first , it was understood that the memorial would have to commemorate servicemen from the latter conflict , despite the original intentions . The Hall of Memory , completed in 1959 , could not have fulfilled Bean ' s dream of commemoration more completely . It adhered to Bean ' s view that war should not be glorified , but that those who died fighting for their country should be remembered . Bean ' s moral principles such as this , and the fact that the enemy should not be referred to in derogatory terms , alongside with many others , greatly influenced the philosophical angle that the Australian War Memorial has always taken , and would continue to take .