hello my name is Shelley,can anyone help me,iv been advised to apply for all court enquire findings regarding my great uncles death,he was killed in friendly fire in 1943,i also want his service records.I understand that the search fee is £25, will this give me ALL information held about him ie,his service records ect??? any advice would be appreciated. thank you.
Originally posted by thomas@Sep 1 2005, 08:54 AM hello my name is Shelley,can anyone help me,iv been advised to apply for all court enquire findings regarding my great uncles death,he was killed in friendly fire in 1943,i also want his service records.I understand that the search fee is £25, will this give me ALL information held about him ie,his service records ect??? any advice would be appreciated. thank you. [post=38449]Quoted post[/post] Hi Shelley, From what has been said previously on this forum, you have to be next of Kin or have written permission of the NoK to apply. Someone will confirm or challenge this. Regards Geoff
I think you'll find the fee has risen to £30 and, as already said' records are only available to next of kin - which may well be you of course? However, you'll wait probably over a month for the record which itself is very likely to be no more than one brief paragraph stating name, number, date joined, date demobed or died, any change of regiment or attachment, any promotions and medal entitlement - that's it. People think they are going to get a dossier for their money which is not the case. Most likely the best chance you have of getting some information about the incident is to read the War Diary for that period and hope to be lucky enough to find an associated report in the file. These will be held at the Public Record Office in Kew and you, or someone, will need to visit in person or else engage an independent researcher which is expensive. You could also try his Regimental Museum or Association, if either exists. The most useful approach is to enquire on a broad basis about the regiments' activities around that time - which requires you to have some prior knowledge of what your asking about. Have you tried to find a book on the regiment? Posing the question, "does anybody know XXX", is the quickest way to provoke no response. They'll probably ask you to make a written enquiry which itself will be at an instant disadvantage unless you pay more attention to your spelling and punctuation! Good luck No.9
just get yourself down to kew - the fee has gone up to £30 only in the last few weeks. Please do not make crude remarks on this forum. Paul Reed, moderator.
