[Pieter H]

Larry, Peter,

Good point!
I've been struggeling with this myself, and have also started to add the first names to Peter's list.
I encountered the following issues:
1. In The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Britain multiple christian names are the habit, especially for those persons with Roman Catholic background. In general all these christian names are irrelevant for the type of analysis we're doing here. However, they are the offical name of the person. So the way Peter has used all initials in his first version of TBoFTaN is correct.
2. In many cases the first christian/baptismal name is the one also used in daily practice. In that case I replace the first initial by the full first name, but leave all others as initials.
E.g. Peter's original entry (all examples from May 18):

Hurricane N2464. Radiator and oil tank hit by return fire during attack on Do17s of 2./KG76 and forced-landed 10 miles south of Douai 7.00 a.m. Pilot Officer P. M. Gardner unhurt. Aircraft destroyed by pilot.

then becomes (with the change in bold):

Hurricane N2464. Radiator and oil tank hit by return fire during attack on Do17s of 2./KG76 and forced-landed 10 miles south of Douai 7.00 a.m. Pilot Officer PeterM. Gardner unhurt. Aircraft destroyed by pilot.

3. In many other cases, especially in The Netherlands, the baptismal names and daily names are quite different. Until the 1960's all Roman Catholic baptismal names in The Netherlands had to be latinized, and the daily used name could be quite different. E.g. Cornelis-Kees. In such cases I prefer to use the daily used name, so:

Hurricane N2430. Shot down by Bf110s of 5./ZG76 between Arras and Douai during attack on Do17s near base and crashed at Biache-St-Vaast 7.05 p.m. Flight Lieutenant L. S. Soden killed. Aircraft a write-off.

becomes:

Hurricane N2430. Shot down by Bf110s of 5./ZG76 between Arras and Douai during attack on Do17s near base and crashed at Biache-St-Vaast 7.05 p.m. Flight Lieutenant L. [Ian] S. Soden killed. Aircraft a write-off.

4. Finally, especially the RAF pilots extensively used nick names, such that without a lot of search effort their more formal first names are often difficult to trace back. In those cases I prefer to use the nick names:

Hurricane L1856. Shot down by ground-fire and crash-landed near St Quentin during transfer flight to Anglure 6.30 a.m. Sergeant R.A. Albonico captured. Aircraft a write-off.

then becomes:

Hurricane L1856. Shot down by ground-fire and crash-landed near St Quentin during transfer flight to Anglure 6.30 a.m. Sergeant R. [Rennie] A. Albonico captured. Aircraft a write-off.

Does this make sense?

regards, Pieter