Treloar left his position at the Memorial for the duration of World War II . In September 1939 Treloar 's close friend Henry Gullett , who at the time was the Minister for Information , appointed him the inaugural secretary of the Department of Information ( DOI ) . The DOI was the first of 17 new Australian Government departments to be established during the war , and was responsible for both censorship and disseminating government propaganda . Treloar ran the department in line with traditional Australian Public Service practices and took steps to prevent the its work from being politicised . To achieve this , he implemented tight internal controls over the DOI 's procedures and information dissemination functions and instructed subordinates to not defend the government from criticism . He remained the departmental secretary after Gullett was moved to a different ministry in March 1940 , but lost status when Keith Murdoch was appointed to the new position of Director-General of Information in June that year . Murdoch 's appointment was part of a government campaign to generate public support for increased armaments production following the fall of France , and he placed a stronger emphasis on generating propaganda . Treloar was troubled by the use of the DOI 's photographers to produce publicity photographs instead of images with historical value . Gullet was killed in the Canberra air disaster on 13 August 1940 . Treloar regained full control of the DOI in December that year when Murdoch resigned , though its photographers were still mainly tasked with taking publicity photos
Canberra air disaster
1940 Canberra air disaster
John Treloar (museum administrator)