Battle of Britain Squadron ORB accuracy

[Jon]

If a Squadron ORB does not mention a certain pilot but, i have reason to believe he was flying that day, how can i look further into it to establish a definate yes or no?

[James A Pratt III]

This is O/T but Louis XVI wrote "nothing" alot in his diary because, it was his hunting diary and he didn't do any hunting ect that day.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Jon

If a Squadron ORB does not mention a certain pilot but, i have reason to believe he was flying that day, how can i look further into it to establish a definate yes or no?

If you don't have the man's logbook, the answer would be to cross-reference with any other source that you can find/think of. This might be higher formations' ORBs (as has been suggested already), other pilots' sortie reports (surviving ones are at the National Archives), letters, diaries, printed memoirs etc. Anything that might mention your guy's name, in fact.

Also at the National Archives you can find Medical Officers' reports for some Squadrons (usually headed "Medical History of the War") and, appended to ORBs, there are sometimes Personal [or is it Personnel?] Occurrence Reports. Most of these are adminstrative but they might reveal something about a person's health or whereabouts at a given time.

[Peter Cornwell]

Originally Posted by Jon

If a Squadron ORB does not mention a certain pilot but, i have reason to believe he was flying that day, how can i look further into it to establish a definate yes or no?

Jon,

You cannot. Nothing is ever definite for long with this type of research and the best one can hope to achieve is a fairly accurate picture of what occurred for, as the saying goes, 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. But have you also considered that things simply didn't happen the way you have 'reason to believe' ?

[Jim P.]

I have been fortunate enough to be able acquire copies of logbooks for several RAF fighter pilots, including a few BoB era. I'm curious, is there an active 'market' amongst historians/hobbyists for the exchange/trading of these in Britain somewhat similar to that for Luftwaffe logbooks?