Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Dear Friends,

I recently visited the RAF Davidstow Moor airfield museum near Bodmin Moor in Cornwall and in speaking to the curator he told me that he has a WW2 Police Record Book that records all 'aviation' related matters for Cornwall , Devon and part of Somerset, which was saved from destruction some years ago.

This Police Record Book records all the crashes in the area, both allied and axis and even the fact that a few WAFs drowned off the beaches during their leave.

I have not heard of such Police records before but it might prove of use to researchers.

http://davidstowmemorialmuseum.co.uk/

It also begs the question - what about other areas of the UK? What happened to their Police Records?

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Sussex's records were obtained many moons ago by the late Pat Burgess I believe

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Hi
cornish police war diaries used to be in the cornwall record office truro
south west civil defence diaries moved in the 70's to taunton record office
devon police war diaries are either lost or destroyed,
although i have been told one page existed in the D&C police museum in 1980's
cheers
jerry

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Chris, do you know what became of the Sussex records?

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

I have quite a number but would expect Andy Saunders to have copies

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Thanks

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

I managed to obtain copies of police reports concerning the crash of an Avro Manchester on the Hamps / Wilts border in 1942 from the Hampshire Constabulary History Society. Very helpful chaps.

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Such records do exist, I know Northern Constabulary's records were retained at archives in Inverness and up into Sutherland. North Yorkshire's records are in Nothallerton. Each force I try around my patch hasn't kept anything and neither have the respective archives. They are Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Derbyshire & Staffordshire.

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

This research resource is new to me and I guess others too, who perhaps have only looked at the TNA for the ORBs etc. So perhaps we all should start asking in our local area to see what is in the archives!

It was only when the curator at Davidstow Moor explained the significance of the Cornwall & Devon Police 'Aviation Incident Log' was it saved.

I'm sure he would gladly look up entries for anyone not local to Bodmin Moor.

http://davidstowmemorialmuseum.co.uk/

We need more Police 'Incident Logs' from WW2 to add to the list

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

I am sure that like Pat Burgess, the early researchers have tracked these down. I tried Hampshire's but apart from a few mentions, nothing

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Hi
This 'incident log' must be different from the truro record office police war diaries,
as the diaries were in the record office in the early 80's at least, i don't think the davidstow museum was around then, but please correct me if i am wrong
cheers
jerry

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

The records as described to me by Davidstow Moor Museum curator last month, were of a type that recorded incidents related to aviation / air activity, so as mentioned previously, the log mentions crashed aircraft and their location in the respective Counties, but also the tragic death of WAAFs who drowned. To me this sounds like a separate type of incident log than the more commonly known War Diaries kept at local level.

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Hi
great, i will pass this info onto someone i know in the UK
cheers
jerry

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Thames Valley Police records at Sulhamstead house Police air accidents reports from 1900s through to the early 1950s. Unfortunately at present due to refurbishment no one can view / access these records.

Andy Bird

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

They also found there way into weekly Air Ministry Reports, in the early days of the war they're very detailed, by 1944 to 1945 they've become one or two lines. Housed at RAFM London.

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

No such luck in East Sussex
This from The Keep
I've questioned if these are Police Reports but told
I'm interested in one incident in August 1944 concerning a Tempest loss, but I'm not travelling to Brighton f there's nothing I can obtain.

Does the Data Protection Act apply?

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

To be honest the Data Protection Act 1998, recently called General Data Protection Regulations from the EU, now called Data Protection Act 2018 in the UK, has been used as an excuse to lock away a lot of historic data. No doubt someone asked a DPA lawyer who was told the records contained names of deceased persons, and so he messed his pants worrying that they (the deceased) might somehow sue, if their details were made public, not realising that such details are held elsewhere in public registries etc. All they have achieved is frustration for historians who often just need one little bit of info to complete a project! In the UK the DPA 2018 even applies to clubs and societies and there isn't a membership threshold, so that club of 2 persons I'm starting needs a Data Protection Officer! Don't get me started!

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Why the hell would the DPA close crash records for 100 years? Bureaucracy at its utmost

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

Am I reading this right? Is it really up to the individual custodian of records to figure it out? Same type of records, same time frames, probably the same forms filled in with the same level of detail and the only reason some are open and others not is because they are held in different counties?

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

It seems that it's down to luck, whether information held by governmental organisations is retained at all as there was masses of 'shelf clearing' of data done in UK from 1970s onwards. What remains as archives that is not in TNA or other sensible Museum may well be at risk if, as mentioned above, a disinterested lawyer gives an opinion. Human nature tells me that if you had to go to the Head Office of an active organisation and asked to go in to their basement and have a good dig around they'd tell you to go away, and so its easier for them to quote GDPR /DPA and not have to deal with such requests in their lifetime! The only way to hold or access data covered by GDPR (in all the countries of the EU) without consent of the data subject is with a Legitimate Interest Exemption (LIE). So you can get details if they relate to you, and possibly if you are the next of kin of a deceased person, but that's about it! Obviously if you are the government you have a LIE in recording any incident in the first place, and can keep the data for as long as you can reasonably justify, but unless there is a specific Government directive to retain data such as Births, Deaths and Marriages, it could be destroyed when 'no longer needed' so there is no certainty it would end up in the TNA. How future generations will be able to research data held only on Computer I don't know!

Individual WW1 service records are withheld from the general public and should become open this year, 100 years after WW1 so I guess WW2 records will be free in 2045. Without getting too political it's the fault of people who write GDPR legislation in the EU that there was no real thought for historians who are frustrated by laws intended to stop us getting bogus phone calls or having our data sold to West Africa or finding our bank account emptied of funds or credit cards cloned. There is such duplicity in recording, so I can go to online to TNA records and find the ORB which might give most of what I need and yet some other historical record may not be open 'because it involves a death' which I knew about anyway!

Re: Police Records of aviation related activity in WW2
 

That's the issue, what "data" is being protected? The PC who filed the police report?
I have the pilot's details, he's been researched and commemorated at the Australian War Memorial with family details not available in UK, I know the aircraft but I don't know where precisely the aircraft crashed. That's what I need, the location as it's difficult to arrange a 75th anniversary commemoration if we're standing in the wrong place!

I feel it's a polite form of "F Off" to quote the DPA especially as he should have been trained that GDPR is the correct fob off quote.

I've taken this further and quite happy to get a sledgehammer for this nut.

There's also a slightly funny side to this as 3 Squadron currently fly Typhoons (not Tempests) and the son of a resident also flies Typhoons in the RAF. Nice touch if he could be detached for the flypast if that fits with RAF "training" schedules on the day.