The National Archives of Australia was urgently searching late this week for at least three missing letters sent between then governor-general Sir John Kerr and Queen Elizabeth II around the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975.

The missing correspondence is part of the “palace letters”, made public following a 10-year battle between the archives and historian Jenny Hocking.

The letters that have been published chronicle a devolving relationship between Kerr and Gough Whitlam. They reveal the moment the governor-general began to turn firmly against his prime minister: when Kerr was publicly criticised over his role in what became known as the Loans Affair.