A two-year project, the collection of letters, documents, private possessions, captured ''souvenirs'' including enemy weapons and medals and other ephemera lays to rest any suggestion Diggers can be pigeonholed as just fighting for ''King and country'', senior curator Craig Tibbitts said.

Mr Tibbitts, one of the four curators who worked on the exhibition that was opened by Dr Peter Pedersen on Wednesday night, is responsible for official and private records at the memorial.

He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the letters, diaries and other documents that have been bequeathed to the memorial over many decades and says that every soldier had their own individual story.

''You can't pigeonhole these men [and women],'' he said, ''the exhibition brings out personal insights and personal narratives; some enlisted from a sense of adventure and wanting to see the world, some because the pay of six bob a day was better than a lot of people were getting and others were genuinely concerned about events overseas and the rise of German militarism.

''One thing that does shine through is the commitment of the soldiers and their determination to stick it out no matter how tough things got.''

Mr Tibbitts said many of the letters and diary entries shared a sense of stoic understatement in the way they were written.

One example is the final diary entry made by Major Frederick Harold Tubb, VC. ''I must not take it [the diary] into the line with me,'' he wrote on September 20, 1917 near Passchendaele in Belgium. ''I hope to enter up my future doings on this when we come out. With the very best love all my dear folk, I'll conclude this. I have a very busy time ahead.''

The rest of the pages are blank. After being shot by a sniper Tubb was mortally wounded by shellfire while being evacuated to the rear.

Tubb's diarised account of the action at Lone Pine, Gallipoli, that saw him awarded the Victoria Cross also features in Anzac Voices. The writing is matter of fact, honest and sincere: ''We went in 670 strong and we came out 320,'' he wrote. ''All the officers except the CO and Capt Layh were hit … I was extremely lucky and feel gratified for being alive and able to write. It is miraculous … three different times I was blown yards away from bombs … Burton of Euroa (also Tubbs' home town) deserved the highest award for his gallant action for three times filling a breach in the parapet till they killed him. By Jove it was some scrap. Anyway, the CO is very pleased with me and so is the Brigadier so I feel as happy as Larry.''

The Tubb diaries were only recently donated to the memorial by the family and now rank among the nation's greatest treasures.

Visitors who are moved by the diary entries can pay their respect to this great man and soldier in the Hall of Honour where his Victoria Cross is on display.

Other highlights include letters from General Sir John Monash, a letter from John Simpson Kirkpatrick (whose statue is at the entrance to the memorial), and the original diaries of Charles Bean, the official war correspondent and the driving force behind the establishment of the Australian War Memorial.

AWM director Dr Brendan Nelson said the exhibition, which will remain in place until the redevelopment of the World War I galleries is completed in November next year, would ''help us form a deeper understanding of what it means to be Australian''.