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Hi
the Mrs dad was at Dunkirk, then a pow, then came home, but never talked to her about it. She has a few military photos and a few details and his service no. Due to the grandsons school doing a WW2 project the Mrs is now trying to find out some more details.
so
Imperial War Museum, British Legion, Regimental museum. Any hints and tips, thanks.
Ancestry.co.uk do a 14 day free trial. You might get access to their military records with it
Try here
I did my Grandads (Navy) a few years ago. We knew he’d been on two ships that were torpedoed, so would like to find out more. Start at the National Archives, its a £30 fee iirc. Here.
That took around 5 weeks. It was quite basic, and just gave some details about where he was posted at what time. From that, you can search the unit they were in, and area to see what they were doing. We didnt find out what ship was sunk, but we did find out a lot more.
Ancestry has a wealth of information.
It's also worth trawling the London Gazette with names and service numbers - just about everything gets listed there.
Newspaper clippings on Ancestry give a wealth of information as the local papers published every wee scrap of news.
When my eldest was doing projects at primary school I got him to ask my Dad about his experiences as an evacuee from London. My Dad told stories that he'd never told me or my sister. Quite wonderful.
My mum did London Gazette and National Archives for her uncle (served in both WW1 and WW2) got a basic picture from that. Needed a lot more digging to get anything concrete though. Turns out he wasn't digging latrines and peeling potatoes. Shame we didn't find out until after he died.
If you know which regiment, try Facebook for a group and post on there (usually with photo) sometimes gets some fast responses.
My partner once had an odd conversation with someone in a call centre triggered by telling them our address. The woman she was talking to went into a long story about her grandfather - the only thing she had really know about him was that he'd died during the Second World War. But thats it - didn't know what armed service he might have been in or where in the world he might have served even. She decided to find out - searched various IWM records and so on, kept drawing a blank and began to wonder if he'd been involved in something more secretive or clandestine which wouldn't yet show up in public records. Anyway - long story short - 'died in the war' turned out to mean 'was run over by a bus on Prestwick Main Street..... during the second world war'
This thread might be the kick up the arse I need to look up some stuff about my Granda. He was also at Dunkirk and I still have the watch he wore that day which works and keeps time. My mum has his kit bag up in her loft so might have to rake it out and do what I've been meaning to do for years
There was a recent episode of the We Have Ways podcast which talked about the Ancestry archives. Episode 944, What did my family do in WW2
Fascinating subject. My father in law who was deceased before I met my wife was pre WW2 in the Scots Greys a cavalry unit. We have never researched his individual military history but assuming he was with the Greys throughout WW2 he was in Palestine at the start and his unit were involved in a mounted action. It retained its horses until 1941, when it became a motorised unit - the last British cavalry unit to do so.
In the 1960s when my wife lived in Pollok Park in Glasgow a local riding stable used to go to him as a first step before contacting a vet as he had a huge amount of knowledge of horses from his army days.
I did this for my grandad who was killed just after d day.
Basically I googled the **** out of it and every time I found a snippet I googled that too.
I only had his name and date of death to start, then from that found some WGC info, which led me to his squadron, his postings, then his plane details and finally the exact place he was killed, and what his mission was. From that I found hand written war department witness statements that were available online, which was utterly incredible and also very sobering and sad. I had always wondered what had happened to him when I was a kid, and finally after 40 years, I could read it all in black and white straight from the horse's mouth. I am under no illusion now as to what happened to him.
He was hit in mid air by anti aircraft fire and his bomber and entire crew instantly vaporised in a fireball. No bodies were ever recovered, only wreckage.
There is loads of info out there, it took me about 6 weeks to slog through it all. There was always something new to follow up, until the final bit of information popped up on the screen and I knew then that I'd reached the end.
It was an incredible, fascinating journey. So good luck and hopefully you will find what you are looking for
I think some luck is involved.
We got lucky as my FILs father was in the Tank Regiment who hold extensive records at the local Museum in Dorset. They were incredibly helpful and we spent about two hours in their archives going through the material they found that mentioned him and allowed us to follow his short military service before he was killed at El Alamein in his first action.
However, despite very good information and a handwritten series of letters from my neighbours father no such luck. His letters mentioned his time on approaching and staying on the beach at Dunkirk before being evacuated and then transported back to the same army base that houses the museum mentioned above. He was in one of the Irish regiments and they did not seem to have a central source of records.
Amongst my relations almost everyone was either too old or too young for service during WW2 (my grandad was in the home guard though)
When he was doing family tree research my dad came across a relative that had held various senior military roles - including a spell it seems as a Kings Equerry. But he was retired by the time war broke out.
Strangely though - it seems he moved to Paris - just before it was invaded. It looks like he stayed there throughout the war, then moved back again after it was liberated. Which did make us wonder if he'd been on some sort of covert shenanigans - officially or otherwise. However by the time my dad started to look into it though the last members of that family line had just died out so there was no-one we could ask about it.
I did a bit of research on my grandfather. He was in the Seaforth Highlanders Territorials at the outbreak of WW1. In France by October and served on the Western Front until the end of the war. At some point he moved into the Labour Corp which did construction work an the area of the trenches but was not front line which possibly helped his chances of survival.
He had 4 brothers, Two died during the war in 1916 and 1917. One drowned in the Iolaire diaaster 1/1/19 within 30 miles of home. His last younger brother died of TB in March 1920. Hard times. Imagine losing 4 sons in 4 years.
Progress
was captured at Hazebrouck near the end of May 1940 ( (his lot were one of the many who were to ordered to stand their ground to stop the German advance so that Dunkirk could happen).
//www.sofo.org.uk
”The heroic last stands of the two battalions between 25 and 29 May won priceless extra time for the evacuating forces, but both battalions were decimated in the process. Of the 1st Bucks, overrun at Hazebrouck, 340 officers and men were captured and became prisoners of war. 56 men were killed in the defence of Hazebrouck, with less than half the battalion’s strength returning home via Dunkirk.”
The Mrs remembered that when he was in an end of life hospice, with Alzheimer’s, that he had a ‘episode’, very distressed/agitated, trying to get out of bed, when it passed he then said the only thing he ever said to her about the war, something like “I thought the jerries were coming over the wall again”
wonder if he'd been involved in something more secretive
The national trust only found out what happened at Hughenden Manor during WW2 in 2004 when a room guide overheard an old man telling his grandson that it "wasn't like this during the war"
NATIONALTRUST.ORG.UK Strangely though - it seems he moved to Paris - just before it was invaded. It looks like he stayed there throughout the war, then moved back again after it was liberated. Which did make us wonder if he'd been on some sort of covert shenanigans - officially or otherwise.Pretty much what we got from Mums research. Her uncle had been all sorts of places that made absolutely no sense. And pretty spotty records of what he'd actually been doing.
Due to the grandsons school doing a WW2 project the Mrs is now trying to find out some more details.
Don't want to set you up for disappointment, but most records kept by the MOD for men in the forces in WW2 are a service number and a series of dates (that maybe be noted, but mostly aren't) and when they were de-mobbed or if the govt were notified by the Red Cross if they were a POW. It might tell you regiment or corps, but often those units don't exist anymore, so you might not be able to tell much beyond outlines that you can find on-line or a book if you're lucky. You can sometimes find a interested local historian or the county museum and they can often add a bit of detail or clarify stuff that you know already, and sometimes they have the unit war-diary, but unless your relative did something that warranted writing about in the middle of a war; are unlikely to be able to tell you an interesting story about your relative. Sorry.
But if you literally know nothing, maybe a wee bit is better than that?
I found out quite a lot about my father from a few different sources.
1st port of call is
His service record showed dates and when and where deployed. Also the names of the different POW camps he was held in. There is loads of info on the POW camps on wiki.
What was quite a surprise, was that he transferred to the Recce Corp in 1941. They were considered Elite and it was a tough selection. He never ever mentioned it. Nobody in the family knew, everyone just thought he was "just" a regular squaddie.
Even though I'm a bit of a WW2 nerd, I had never heard of the Recce Corp, turns out they were disbanded in 1945 and just dropped off the radar. There are only a couple of books on their history.
The other useful source, once you have his unit etc. is
There are sub forums to different units and you can find war diaries, anecdotal stuff and lots of other good stuff.