Hi all, I posted a thread on here a few months ago with a photo of my grandads No51 juniors leaders course up in Catterick (of which a lovely chap replied saying that his father was on the course before him), sorry I can’t remember your name !! Anyway obviously I wanted to find out how to obtain more info on him. With your help I have now received his military history. I can fathom a lot of it out although it’s quite difficult to read. It looks like he was posted to 17 air formation signals in October 1943 and then somewhere inbetween 04/05/44 and 18/07/44 it says that he embarked NWE(or could be NWF) and disembarked uk. Is there anyone who might be able to shed some light on this please?? Would he of been over in Normandy at this time ??
Hi The best way for members to help you would be for you to scan/photo and upload the images if his service record, so that members can decypher what it says NWE would be North West Europe TD
Hi Here is the 2nd Air Formation Signals portion of the Comms Plan for the allied landings in Greece in October 1944. I can't guarantee it will be anything like the Air Formation Signals unit of your grandfather was in when he was in NWE, but Army units do tend to be very similarly structured. It might give you a rough idea of what they were doing and with what equipment. Hope this helps. Gus
17 Air Fmn. Sigs. | The National Archives Reference: WO 166/12419 Description: 17 Air Fmn. Sigs. Date: 1943 Sept.-Dec. Held by: The National Archives, Kew Legal status: Public Record(s) Closure status: Open Document, Open Description 17 Air Fmn. Sigs. | The National Archives Reference: WO 171/2005 Description: 17 Air Fmn. Sigs. Date: 1944 Jan.- Dec. Held by: The National Archives, Kew Legal status: Public Record(s) Closure status: Open Document, Open Description 17 Air Fmn. Sigs. | The National Archives Reference: WO 171/5984 Description: 17 Air Fmn. Sigs. Date: 1945 Jan.- June Held by: The National Archives, Kew Legal status: Public Record(s) Closure status: Open Document, Open Description The above are the War Diaries for the formation you mention. We have members on the site who offer the service to copy them if you cannot do that yourself. But first really need to see the full service records so that no one is going down blind alley's TD
I’ve tried to upload the images of his records but it keeps saying that the files are too large !! I’ve uploaded photos on here a few months ago in exactly the same way and had no problem at all. Any suggestions to what I’m doing wrong ?? Sorry, I’m not good with technology?!?!
The maximum size of file you can upload is 2Mb - so I assume your files are larger than that so they would need to be resized/made smaller. Have you scanned them or photographed them ? TD
Hi Why don't you download a copy of "Fotosizer". Its a very easy to understand image resizing tool that handles multiple files at a the same time. Drop the image size or quality by 50% and change it to black and white and watch the file size drop dramatically. Gus
Phew, at last. I think I’ve done it (with much head scratching). Hope you can all see these files ok.
5/11/42 - 18/8/44 UK (Home) 19/8/44 - 17/7/45 North West Europe (France) 18/7/45 - 11/1/46 UK (Home) 12/1/46 - 16/5/46 India 17/5/46/ - 11/6/46 UK (Home) 17/6/46 Demob and Reserve TD
It looks as though he was in 3 units 10 3 1944 -- 18 7 1945 17 AFS - so this would cover his time in NWE He was also in 20 AFS and 7 AFS I note during his time in India he also worked at Calcutta and Singapore TD
As an example of other War Diaries you may need Air Formation Signals: 7 Air Fmn. Sigs | The National Archives Reference: WO 172/8422 Description: Air Formation Signals: 7 Air Fmn. Sigs Date: 1945 May-Dec. Held by: The National Archives, Kew Legal status: Public Record(s) Closure status: Open Document, Open Description TD
Thanks for all the info. I’ve been on the national Archives website and found the files. How would you say is the easiest way to get copies ? You said earlier that there are people on this forum who could help. Would it be easier to go through them ?
There are 2 at least and the ones that I know and have used to copy files - they are in no particular order of preference http://ww2talk.com/index.php?members/psywar-org.2876/ http://ww2talk.com/index.php?members/drew5233.6786/ They will charge you about 10% of what the TNA will charge TD