RAF War Establishment Papers

Discussion in 'The War In The Air' started by Retroliser, Dec 3, 2022.

  1. Retroliser

    Retroliser Member

    Hello, everyone!

    So, after going on a search of the forum, I thought I'd set up this thread and ask for assistance with a problem I have.

    Having read Trux's entire collection of war establishment transcriptions for 21st Army Group on D-Day, it made me wish for information on whether similar papers existed for the Royal Air Force or Navy. After ferreting around a bit online, I was able to find that, yes, papers do exist. However, much to my annoyance, the few that I could find have suffered from having parts cut off and so forth.

    Unfortunately, the only examples of war establishment papers I could find were for an RAF Bomber Group headquarters in 1939 from a website called RAF Commands (www.rafcommands.com). This, while interesting, hasn't really satisfied my desire to know what structures existed for various squadrons, wings, groups, commands, stations, and the like. So, I attempted to speak to the National Archives at Kew, using what I could glean in terms of war establishment numbers from the papers provided by RAF Commands as a foundation. Unfortunately, the papers they have are not digitised, and when I spoke to someone from the archive, they said it was incumbent upon me to hire the services of a professional researcher.

    Well, before I fork out money, I'd like to exhaust all other avenues where the information I desire can be gained for free. So, I am here to ask if anyone else has ever come across war establishment tables for The Royal Air Force? Maybe even the Luftwaffe or US Army Air Force? It's all information I'd like to read, and some guidance as to where I can go would be much appreciated.

    As an addendum, I've also visited a website called Military Research Services, an American-based business that offered tables of organisation and equipment for US Army units during World War 2 for cheap, however it would seem that they may have shut up shop, since they've not done anything since 2020. Has anyone ever used or heard of them before?

    Apologies for the large post, and I hope everyone's doing well at the moment.

    Merry Christmas,
    Retroliser
     
  2. P-Squared

    P-Squared Well-Known Member

    You can visit the National Archives yourself, it’s easy enough to set up - you don’t NEED to employ a researcher (if you have the time, of course.)
     
  3. RAFCommands

    RAFCommands Senior Member

    For Bomber Command they are listed under Organisation or Establishment for each formation eg Command, Wing, Squadron etc scattered in AIR14

    Air Ministry: Bomber Command: Registered Files | The National Archives

    Other Commands, Air Command and Air Force eg Coastal, India and South East Asia) under their respective AIR section.

    A shortcut you may want to use is to consider "role employed" generally all formations have the same establishment for the role - only difference being theatre which gives different IR equipment/manpower.

    Ross
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2022
  4. Retroliser

    Retroliser Member

    Thank you for the advice if I need to visit Kew. Wait a minute... Your username's RAFCommands... Are you the operator of the website I referenced?
     
  5. Gary Kennedy

    Gary Kennedy Member

    I can't offer any likely locations I'm afraid; my interest has long been in Army WEs though I've often wondered about the RAF equivalents. The only RAF one I've seen is a 1942 one on RAF Commands, particular to India.

    War Establishment of a Hurricane Squadron – RAFCommands

    You can search the Discovery catalogue on the National Archives site and narrow down the to WW2 dates and file reference titles for AIR. Nothing ever jumped out at me as being a series devoted to documents detailing Squadron organisation, personnel and equipment.

    Re your query about Military Research Services, they should, I think, still be up and running. The owner, John Thatcher, has (along with several other folks) been extremely helpful to me as regards US Army Tables of Organization. Drop him an email via the link on his site and I'm sure he'll get back to you.

    These can also be obtained from the Army Heritage Center, but just checking in on their updated researcher for hire pages the prices have skyrocketed since my last order with them!

    Researcher-for-Hire - Army Heritage Center Foundation

    Also when looking at US Tables of Organization you need to bear in mind that when these documents included the Table of Equipment the number of pages could run into the dozens, particularly for a technical unit such as engineers or signals. I would imagine Air Forces would be the same. MRS gives a page count for each T/O.

    There are a few, and just a few, Luftwaffe KStN tables over on wwiidaybyday.com, mostly for the opening years of the war.

    Luftwaffe

    Gary
     
    Aixman likes this.
  6. RAFCommands

    RAFCommands Senior Member

    Used to be - but now Jagan is now the site boss.

    It was under my watch that I copied and posted the Bomber Command Group Establishment pages you used to ask Kew about.

    Ross
     
  7. Retroliser

    Retroliser Member

    Thank you, Mr. Kennedy for your response.

    Meanwhile, Mr. Ross. Were you the one that posted the Hurricane Squadron papers on RAFCommands too? I found that, but one of the pages has the B Class Tenders section cut off, so one can't see the numbers.

    Edit: Wait, aren't you the Gary Kennedy that I see all over the place as the author of volumes for War Establishments, but none of the places that list your work actually have them in stock?
     
  8. RAFCommands

    RAFCommands Senior Member

    Nope - the Hurricane Establishment was Jagan's baby - his specialist interest covers India Command.

    Ross
     
  9. Gary Kennedy

    Gary Kennedy Member

    Yes, that's me (would be a heck of a coincidence given the number of people interested in the subject!). I'm currently trying to rehabilitate the old books for my website, which is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. The publisher does not seem to have survived the change of ownership, and I've never I heard a dickybird. I thought i might as well do something constructive with the work, it's just the reviewing, revising and hopefully adding new content that takes the time.

    Gary
     
    Aixman likes this.
  10. Retroliser

    Retroliser Member

    I've been to bayonetstrength.uk too! I remember it when it was under its originally domain before it went offline. I can tell you that I was devastated when I visited the site only to find it was replaced with a generic advertisement for how I could buy the domain name for pennies.
     
    Gary Kennedy likes this.
  11. Kiwi REd One

    Kiwi REd One Junior Member

    Do you realise that the old www.bayonetstrength.150m.com site is still accessable via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine?

    Index

    The wayback machine is a bit hit and miss as it does not always record every site fully, but all the links on the www.bayonetstrength.150m.com site I tried worked OK, but it may take a few seconds for the archived pages to appear so be patient.
     
    Gary Kennedy likes this.

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