It has been announced that close to 100,000 more British Second World War service records have been made available to order from The National Archives (TNA) in Kew.
With the reference number WO 421, these records are in the series, ‘War Office: Selected Smaller Corps Other Ranks: Service Records’ and can be searched via TNA’s online catalogue Discovery at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17682287
Made up of 94,234 service records of soldiers (excluding officers) who served in the Army Air Corps; the Royal Army Veterinary Corps; the Royal Military Police or Corps of Military Police; the Royal Army Pay Corps; the Royal Army Physical Training Corps; the Military Provost Staff Corps; the Royal Corps of Army Music; the Royal Army Education Corps; the Royal Pioneer Corps; the Intelligence Corps; the Officer Training Corps; and the Non-Combatant Corps.
These particular records are for soldiers who were discharged from the armed forces from these smaller units/corps of the British Army as being over age before their time expired. Some of the individuals may have also served in other regiments/corps during the course of their military careers (details of which will be recorded on their service record).
The types of documents that are most commonly found within the service records comprising this series are:
-
- Attestation forms, which are the documents signed by the new recruit, or created upon transfer between units;
- Statement of service, which outline an individual’s postings whilst in service;
- Discharge forms, which were issued when a soldier left the regiment;
- A variety of supporting correspondence.
These records are important because this provides easier access for the researcher. Previous to this all British military service records after 1920 were held by the Ministry of Defence (MOD). Records would need to be ordered by next of kin for a £30 fee, but fulfilling an order was taking up to a year.
In February 2021, the MOD began to transfer all 9.7 million historic service records to TNA but this process is expected to take some time. In April 2022 the first tranche was released on TNA’s Discovery and it covered the service records of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, in series WO 420.
With this next batch becoming available at TNA anyone can now search for a service record which includes the soldier’s initial, surname, service number and date of birth. The researcher can then order it to view at TNA with a wait time of four working days, or pay to have a copy of the record sent to them.
Regretfully, service records of men born fewer than 115 years ago are closed, however a researcher can apply to see the service record if they are able to supply proof of death and then make a freedom-of-information request for a record to be opened.
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17682287
Send to Kindle