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Hi Larry, if I may, the correct references for, firstly, the microfiche indexes and, secondly, the actual folders of reports are:
RG 92.9.2 Missing Air Crew Reports, Air Crashes by Date: 4 September 1939-8 May 1945 (Lists of Allied air crashes prepared from German sources, 1939-45), Records of the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) Missing Air Crew Reports, National Archives Microfiche Publication M1380, fiches 5970-5984.
RG 242.9.4 Luftgaukommando Reports pertaining to downed Allied aircraft 1939-45
The microfiche indexes, of course, only relate to aircraft of the Western Allies, and, in many cases for RAF aircraft, an individual folder for a crash isn't held at NARA, there only being a reference to the crash being in a summary telex on a file for a USAAF aircraft. The British Ministry of Defence has custody of the large collection of original reports relating to RAF aircraft, all of which remain classified.
Sadly, I think that documents from some of the original folders at NARA may have been stolen over the years, based on a small number of surveyed files that were missing summary signals referred to in the microfiche indexes.
Thanks for confirmation of the existence of the Soviet air force crash reports - I often wondered if these were declassified. I wonder if any effort was ever made to index them? I doubt it.
Cheers
Rod
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Hi Rod,
No wonder I couldn't find it on the NARA web site. I would even suspect that a lot has happened to that collection since I last worked with it in 1985-86 at the Suitland Federal Records Center. There were whispers among the archivists (Bill Lewis, Amy Schmidt and others at that time) even back then that there had already been some pilfering. With personal effects in many of the folders, the temptation was just too great for the light-of-hand. People who steal from archives should be turned over to the Saudis and tried before a Sharia court, and we all know what sentence they dispense for theft. At that time the collection was labeled T-1033, but it was changed when everything was moved to Archives II in College Park in 1995-96.
Thanks for the update on this valuable and interesting collection, Rod. Thanks to you, researchers can now find it among NARA's vast and often confusing holdings.
Larry