Hi All.....I am just starting out in researching my Grandfather whom never spoke about his time during WWII. All I know was that he served with the Suffolk Regiment in India, which leads me to thinking he would have been in the 2nd Battalion. His name is James William Banks and am looking for some initial information that may confirm him in the 2nd Battalion and any service details.
Welcome aboard. Others may come along and help. Always apply for his Service Record, even if the turnaround is reported as a year plus now. See: Get a copy of military service records Upload the records here once you've obtained them and then the forum can get to work on them. Please do not pay for any site on the internet who promise you his service records they will not have them, and you would have wasted your money. An example of what you get, this is an Army record, the RN's are different: Pte S Attley 14685855 4th Wilts Service Records | WW2Talk More help is on: Service Records Adding what you have already found can help, saves others from duplication. A Date of Birth and a Service Number help, though the experts here can surmount that gap. I have noted the 'Other Ranks' rarely feature in Google searches unless they have been awarded gallantry medals or written their memoirs. Searching Google will sometimes bring you back here. For example there is this long thread: 2 Suffolks Burma You must be agile and keep going. War diaries can contain almost anything. At the very least, they give the daily movements and most important actions of every unit. They may also contain information on casualties, message logs, rolls of officers (but not O.R.'s), maps, orders, and much else. They are available at the PRO to everyone. Drew5233 and some others are willing to scan them for the benefit of those who cannot get to the National Archives at Kew. It depends of course how much you want to know, just one battle or campaign for an example. Please come back and tell us what you found. Scanning threads it is clear some discover the site years after your posts and add their information or request help. Good luck.
Thanks.....the military service records was going to be my next task and so I'll get that in the works.
Agree with davidbfpo entirely. Unless you can find some info in the family it is unlikely that you can find any information on your grandfather's service without getting his service records from the MOD. There is a long wait at the moment and so you can research 2nd Bn Suffolks in the meantime. Have you asked everyone in the family for any information, stories, medals, photos, papers etc? 2nd Suffolks were the only Battalion in India and Burma but there were two Battalions (4th and 5th) at Singapore. However most of the soldiers in those two Battalions became POWs of the Japanese and you would probably have heard of it if that was the case. I have checked the casualty lists on FindMyPast and he does not appear in them so he is unlikely to have been with 4th or 5th Bns.
