Hi, I am trying to interpret the RAF units that someone I am researching served in. I have attached the screenshot of the units, but I am just unsure of some aspects of it. Unit Reason Date 2RC - 2 Recruit Centre, Cardington 05/07/1940 7RC – 7 Recruit Centre, Morecambe 11/07/1940 RAF Thorney Island, West Sussex 02/08/1940 Police HQ - H 21/12/1940 Stn Wilmslow – RAF Wilmslow No.4 School of Recruit Training HH 31/01/1941 Illegible 29/08/1941 Missing 12/02/1942 Uxbridge NE – RAF Uxbridge FF 12/02/1942 106 PRC – 106 Personnel Reception Centre RAF Cosford 19/09/1945 104 PDC – Personnel Dispatch Centre, Hednesford 06/04/1946 I know that this man was a Japanese POW and his unit was SP RIMU, but there is no mention of it on the units. Also he is in RAF Uxbridge on 12/2/1942, how could he then have been captured in Sumatra just over a month later? I also cannot find any abbreviation for the "FF" in the reason column next to the RAF Uxbridge posting. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, George
Ok H and HH in reason is Home Force and Headquarters Holding - everything else in Reason is either a file reference to a memo/signal or a column in a routine order such as POR (Personnel Occurance Report) - all documents long destroyed from the RAF Registry. 29/08/41 is Far East and records the date his paperwork moved - he would have taken much longer to get there eg 3 months. So arrived just about the same time as Japanese Invasion of Malaya. Again the Uxbridge is a movement of his papers - not him. It simply means that he was posted from Far East Command as non-effective (missing/PoW/dead all the same paperwork pot WCAD - War Casualty Account Dept) Rather a lot of RAF movement records did not get filled in from 6th Dec and those that did or awaiting transfer by ship back to UK were dumped to allow the more important cargoes of personnel and equipment to leave the dock side Jan/Feb 42. Check the front page of the Form 543 - normally it records missing and pow SP RIMU is Service Police Radar Installation Maintenance Unit - an ad hoc formation that grouped the various radar bod together on the retreat back to Singapore Island - as a unit it left by boat but arrived at Sumatra a day before the Japanese invasion there and was captured virtually enmass. Help with handwriting on RAF service record Ross
