Ministry of Defence Fiasco

[BushInn1746]

Hello

They would perhaps have been better off saying they cannot find your record for the time being and offering a refund?


Was he Army?


Records Transferred
I am aware that Army records have been shipped for some time now and will take several years to move them.

I suspect a reference to your file was found in one of many Ledgers and the files were already packed?


We had this with an Army Private about two years ago, who left the Army in 1936, we proved death had occurred and gave his details, but it was refused under the FoI Act.
Fortunately no money was requested when the enquiry was made.


Twenty years ago, under the Release of information we had to show:-
1) the Death of the Service Person had occurred. 
2) that his Wife had also died (with a photocopy Death Certificate), but because she had remarried ... 
3) that her 2nd husband had also died too (with a photocopy Death Certificate)

An Index Card (photocopy from microfilm) was released, corresponded to a file and to find it would exceed £600 under FoI Act and was refused.

Those particular files were offered to the Public Record Office, but the PRO/TNA only wanted a limited sample.

Mark

[Marianthompson47]

Thank you Mark. I just find the way the MOD deal with the public very light.

In fact, I wish I hadn't bothered at all as all it has done is give me headaches and sadness.

When they told me they had found several records and to pay immediately I was hoping to receive said record within 20 days, as per their statement.

Equally, when you answer their email of query anything, they simply do not respond

I think they have taken on too big a case.

😔😓

[dobfarm]

I wrote to the MOD earlier this year requesting military records for my father.

They wrote in October to say  that they had found said records and asked me to pay around £28 adding the records would be sent to me within 20 days.

I made the payment straight away and waited.

Then I received another email saying they were looking for records!?


I responded quoting the information they have sent me, but no response.

Today, I have received another long email where they are quoting Public Interest Test where I understand they have to ensure my father would be happy for this information to be released to the public!

My father had been dead for over 60 years!? How can they communicate with him?

Why did they not ensure they complied with rules BEFORE taking my money!?

I am not sure where to turn as you cannot even call them and they do not respond to my emails.

If you have paid the around £28 to the MOD and they have not honored their service in 20 days they quoted you.

I would have a word with your local MP for advice, show the MP a copy of your email of the MOD around £28 request payment ! and other communication emails the MOD have sent you as well.  Seeing its Gov MOD, he or she MP maybe able make enquires on you behalf.

[Marianthompson47]

Thank you!!

[BushInn1746]

I don't suppose you have the envelope and Certificate of Service of several pages that your Father was given or sent when he left the Service?

The RAF 'Certificate of Service' (Form 1996 RAFVR) was a Printed Sheet (folded) giving 4 Foolscap sides and folded into the envelope pictured (Identification painted out)

Certificate Of Service sent during WW 2

Full Name
Official No [Service Number] 
Place of Birth and County
Date of Birth
Place and Date of Marriage and Maiden Name of Wife
Religion
Term of Engagement
Wife and Two Next of Kin, with their Title, initials, surnames with their full addresses and their relationship, e.g. Wife, Father, Brother
Date of Joining, Joining Office and Town
Birth Mark 
Height
Chest sizes
Hair Colour
Eye colour
Date Placed on Reserve.
All the following are also dated From and To dates
Civil Navigation School, School Unit Number and Airfield Location Name
Where Trained as a Reservist 
Under Training as
When moved from Reserve to Permanent
Remusterings and Promotions
Posting with Date to Operational School, Unit Number and Place
Date of Qualification and Proficiency and reference to an Award, a Badge (the material badge was a sewn on their Uniform)
Conduct
Units attached to, with From and When Dates and the Places named
Squadron Number (This was the only one, where the place was not given, but Dad told me this place and his Wife took a temporary house there) and we have several letters sent from there.
Date of Death or Discharge from the Air Force.


We applied for the RAF Service Record, but it contained nothing about their day to day Service.


But some old boys (at the Squadron Association) who applied for their personal Service Record whilst still alive, said they got very numerous photocopy sheets from their full file.

 -------------------------------

If the Service personnel were attached to a fighting or Operational Unit most of those kind of Unit Records survive in the Archives, but it can be an expensive hunt to piece a decent history together.

RAF Operational Records are quite good from Command to Group to RAF Station or Unit. Then separate Squadron records are online.

Mark

[Marianthompson47]

Thank you Mark.

My parents separated when I was 12. My mother and my siblings.remaining in Brussels, and father returning to England.  I wrote to him on many occasions but then life took its toll and writing stopped.

I know very little if anything at all about his life, other than he was a piano teacher.

It's only now, in my 70ies that I found the interest in his past, because he was out of my life for many years.

Two years ago, after much research, I managed to find out where he was buried, far away from his home. And we visited twice.

I have nothing of his but a Bible, given to him in Ayr, Scotland in 1956.

[BushInn1746]

Hello

It is a great pity for family history, if the family split up and Mother did not say much about their Father's family.

"The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) is conducting a massive project to transfer about 10 million British Armed Forces service records to The National Archives (TNA), a process expected to finish by 2027, making historical personnel files from WWII and post-war eras (up to 1963) available for public access after closure periods, with some records already online via Ancestry. This vast digitization and transfer effort aims to preserve and open up military history, though access to closed records still involves specific application processes through TNA or Gov.uk"

When the Record Office at Hayes, closed, the files went to a new storage facility with a database.

There was a press release when this new Archives opened and a local chap was a Navy Adjutant and he was reunited with one of the books that he put in a sealed drum during WW 2 before he and the drum went overboard into the Sea, so the drum must have recovered and he survived too.

Mark

[BushInn1746]

If you found his burial place.

Burial Record
Have you seen the burial record to see what is said (if it adds anything) as some give abode or circumstance / address of the death?

Some Scottish Death Certificates
Mid 20th Century onward, Death Certificates in Scotland are usually very good, my Grandmother's recorded 1st & 2nd husband names and her parents and her Father's occupation and Mother's Maiden name (which we knew was correct) back to c.1900 period.

Try Scotland's People, the official site.

They are usually like our GRO Copy Certificates, usually of a good enough quality to decipher the details.

Newspapers Online
Sometimes Death / Funeral Notices in newspapers may mention other family.

Undertakers
Undertakers, a Canadian Funeral Home helped me trace the family of a person they had buried (after getting information from the Cemetery Office) and offered to send a copy of my letter to the family and the family kindly photocopied official information they had and my relative who flew with him as Crew on flights was named in her Father's Log Book.

Undertakers Instructed by Authorities
Regarding an incident 60 years ago written enquiries were made to all three undertakers in the nearest town in England who may have collected one of the deceased wanting to know the collection place.

I could get nowhere with the Coroner and the Police Archives Store, nor Ambulance Books.

A reply came from one Undertaker, who said we only keep one Book now, because that names who we collect, the place collected from (which was a village name) and who paid for the coffin.

Regarding the date and one of the names you gave us in your letter, was named on the attached page (photocopy enclosed).

Mark

[Marianthompson47]

Thank you Mark.

I discovered the General Registry Office three years ago..
I sent off for my father's death certificate.
It shows he had had an operation in Coventry and was sent to Lanherne, a recovery hospital in Dawlish, Devon. Hundreds of miles away.
Then I had to find out if his sister had claimed his body of whether there was a funeral in Devon.
I rang all the cemeteries and eventually found him.

He was actually cremated.
I owe it to him in order to carry out one last respect I owe him.
The death certificate quotes a lung problem.