his peers defeating Keith Murdoch in the national ballot. He became an embedded correspondent, whose despatches, reporting on Australia's participation in the war, were to be available to all Australian newspapers and published in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. He was accorded the honorary mess rank of captain, provided with a batman and driver and was required to submit his despatches to the British censor. On advice, however, he retained his civilian status in order to be free of unnecessary military restrictions in carrying out his duties as correspondent. Whatever he wrote was to be subject to rigid censorship. Senator George Pearce, Minister for Defence in the Commonwealth Labor Government, told Bean before he sailed to the war that he hoped Bean would write the history of the Australian part in it on his return to Australia. Bean’s work habits throughout the war were predicated on gathering material for that purpose. On 21 October 1914, Bean left Australia on the troopship HMAT Orvieto, which carried Major General Bridges and his headquarters. He was accompanied by Private Arthur Bazley, his formally designated batman, who became his invaluable assistant, researcher, lifelong friend and, later, a one-time acting Director of the AWM. During the course of the war, although Bean developed close relationships with senior commanders, he was never far from the front line, reporting on the activities of the A.I.F. he could personally witness. He would position himself with his telescope "about 1,200 yards from (or, on Gallipoli, almost right in) the frontline." As well as reporting, Bean kept an almost daily diary record of events. These diary entries also reflected the feelings and views of an individual who witnessed those events which ranged from battles to planning and discussions in headquarters, and to men at rest and in training. He regarded his diaries as the foundation of the official history, “especially for the detail of what happened in and immediately behind the front line”. In later years he reviewed his diary comments and sometimes revised his wartime opinions, but the immediacy of each diary entry provides insight into the times and conditions as he was experiencing them. Bean was aware of the limitations of the diaries and of eyewitness accounts. As a condition of the gift of his papers to the AWM in 1942 he stipulated that it attach to every diary and notebook a caveat which was amended in 1948