WW2 Military Service Records
Previously held by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), post-1920’s military service records, including for those who served in WW2, have now been mostly transferred to the National Archives (NA). The MoD obviously did not consider assisting Family Historians as one of their main functions, so finding out whether a relevant record existed and then obtaining a copy could take some time, maybe a couple of years in some cases. Although the transfer of the documents, amounting to several million, is continuing the processes for handling and cataloguing these records already seems to be making things easier for family history researchers.
In addition to properly storing and cataloguing the records, another strand of the project is digitising the documents meaning they will be available on-line as well as being able to be viewed at the NA. Some records will initially remain closed due to age-related release constraints and some items of sensitive information will be redacted (e.g. medical data, details of children who may be living).
With several million records to deal with the digitisation aspect is taking place in batches and will take some time to complete. It is currently being carried out in conjunction with Ancestry and the digitised records will be available on the Ancestry website as well as on-site at NA, Kew.
The release of the latest batch of digitised records has enabled me to find and download the service records of three family members who served in WW2:
James Gordon Mann (1914-1954) – Served in Corps of Military Police.
Hugh Gilmour Dorman (1919-1987) – Served in Royal Artillery.
David Michael Dorman (1914-1991) – Served in Royal Army Service Corps.
There is a lot of detail in the service records to work through which may take some time; the records are handwritten by various administrative staff and they are full of, sometimes obscure, abbreviations. In addition, as the records list each person’s individual units, the day-to-day activities of those units can be researched in the Unit War Diaries held at the NA.
Although the information in these records hasn’t yet been looked at in detail, one element did catch my eye. This was a reference to a ‘Mention in Dispatches’ for David Dorman which was published in the London Gazette (the official paper of record) on 29th Nov 1945. The relevant activity will have taken place some time before that date and there is no detail; David Dorman’s name is just one of a long list under the citation:
“The King has been graciously pleased to approve that the following be Mentioned in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in Italy:-“
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