RAF records

[ajhales]

Dear all,

I am making a rather general post and plea for assistance!

I have been researching the loss of a relative on 22nd March 1944 in Lancaster ND672 of 49sqn RAF. I have found out a good deal of information and joined the association.

However I discovered that whilst on his second mission my relative crashed returning from Berlin. The date was 23/24 November 1943 and pilot was Flying Off Don Turner. They had a faulty altimeter and hit the beach at Chapel St Leonards.Thank fully everyone was ok although some of the crew had to spend time at Scapton sick bay.

This is where my question lies, the mid upper gunner was a Sgt T. D. Horne service number 1807365. He was apparently unhurt and did some more ops as a spare and then left the sqn according to the Sqn ORB's. He is not on the CWGC site so must have survived the war. However I cannot seem to find out anymore about him, not even his first names.

Does anybody know how I may find this information or what RAF Records would release to me as I am not NOK and do not have a death cert as I do not know enough about him or even if this man has since passed away.

Many thanks in advance for any assistance,

Ashley

[Buffnut453]

Couple of options. Firstly, if you know what unit(s) he served in, and if they have an active Squadron Association, you may be lucky to find pics or his name mentioned. You might be surprised what careful searching of the internet can uncover. Alternatively, you could try joining the RAF Association and posting a request in their magazine "Air Mail" (it has sections for both veterans and researchers). Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Mark

[Dave Richardson]

Hi Ashley,
If he survived the war, without a death certificate I doubt you'll get any information from the RAF. If you do a search on the birth registers from 1915 to 1925 you'll find a only one birth with the right initials - Terence D. Horne born in the 4th quarter of 1924 in Barnet Middlesex, so the year looks about right. I can't find a death registered for him up to 2006 (the latest you can check on line) so he may be still alive.

HTH

Dave

[dp_burke]

You will get his first names from the AIR78 index of names on the UK National Archives website.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/d...-microfilm.asp

Click on the name of the series then download for tree the batch with your mans name in it.

[dp_burke]

I was feeling a bit generous so I downloaded the list and the closet is a

Terence David Horne 1806265, is there a chance the S/N was not easy to read on the ORB or where ever you picked it up?

[Observer1940]

Originally Posted by dp_burke

You will get his first names from the AIR78 index of names on the UK National Archives website.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/d...-microfilm.asp

Click on the name of the series then download for tree the batch with your mans name in it.

Thanks Dennis

I have tried searching for WW 2 RAF surnames on TNA, Kew site previously in the online search box and could not get any returns? However, according to what you describe, it appears that you have to download the whole pdf document covering the range of surnames, in which the surname you are searching for, falls within? Then search the downloaded document itself?

Up to now, I have managed to find many of the surnames with initials and usually a Service number from "Search the Archive" at www.gazettes-online.co.uk

If the person survived long enough to be promoted, receive an Award, or survive the war, a further search can be made with the Service Number to show other search returns, some returns give their full name, although different search combinations have to be attempted. A very quick search does not reveal this chap though.

I noticed recently while searching the FlightGlobal Archive direct from the Google search bar, revealed pre war Units to which RAF Officers were posted and other information.
Mark

[Observer1940]

Originally Posted by dp_burke

I was feeling a bit generous so I downloaded the list and the closet is a

Terence David Horne 1806265, is there a chance the S/N was not easy to read on the ORB or where ever you picked it up?

Ashley

There is a "Dave Horne" on Forces Reunited with the Service number 1806265 given by Dennis (quoted), with years served 1940 to 1945.

Mark

[dp_burke]

There is no idication anywhere on the UK National Archives site that you would be able to find information on WW2 airmen from searching on it? Think about it, someone would have to type up an immense database, on public money? not anytime soon.

The AIR78 files are part of the free Documents on line, Digitial Microfilm project or offering. You find the batch of downloads that might contain your airman/woman's name, download that PDF or batch of PDF's and with luck you will find their full name/serial number. And that is all you will find, its not service records, its just thousands of pages of microfilm, each page having 8 little peices of paper with a persons name and serial number.

You have to search the downlaoded file manually as the typing onthe microfilmed pages is very poor in most cases and OCR text scanners probably wouldn't pick it up, so no, you do not electronically search the file, you scroll using mark 1 human eye-ball. Not so bad as long as your not looking for John Smiths.

The London Gazette government publication lists promotions and awards to RAF personel, so you of course won't find the vast majority of non commishioned airmen in there, they have no reason to be mentioned there in unless they received an award for their service.

Promotion names in the London Gazette are published in the format

12345 John James SMITH (123567) where the first number is the enlisted number, the airmans number assigned at enlistment, the second number in brackets is the persons new officers number underwhich he will appear under for ever more in the LG. A problem is that the first non-com number is not seen properly by the LG search engine, so one can basically never find an airman via his non-com number in these lists. The search engine thinks the number is joined to the line before it and ain;t smart enough to see it. Of course sometimes it might work, THERE ARE NO HARD AND FAST RULES with searchign the LG, just general patterns. The page quality may mean that the scanned text is recognised as jibberish and the font the use gets easily mixed up in its g 9, 1 i etc, so a number 1 can be seen as an i by the OCR. Dirt on the page can manifest itself as a full stop in the middle of a name, like John Sm.ith, or a phantom space might show up, John Sm ith.

generally search for:
officers number if known
full name if know
name with initials and full stops on the initials, if known

T. D. Horne

try D. Horne

Once your man gets commishioned, his name will appear only as initials charting his subsuquent promotions, but as many other times, his name may appear in full.

Flight Global pre war did publish postings yes, search from within their search engine, i can;t recall the format of how they present Squadon numbers but its something like

57 Sqdn. or 57 Sqn. The Flight Global engine picks up on strings of phrases only, It will find 57 Sqn. but can't pick up on 57 Sq for example. Similar to the LG search engine.

if you had the PDF's downloadaed and combined into multipage files, then yes, you coudl search to your hearts content for strings of letters and numbers, but whos got the time to download these things and combine them and then store them, blah blah

Time for lunch.

The only chance of finding things easy on a database is in few years time when they pass the databases over to someone like ancestry.com who have armies of volunteer transcribers, and who may eventually give something like public access for a fee. Course all us sad wally researchers will be retiring and dying and who will be left to give a stuff???

meanwhile, learn to use the CWGC, LG, AIR78 and Flight global as best you can. Practice makes perfect.

[ajhales]

Evening all,

Thank you for all the replies and help given its greatly appreciated and has been an enormous help in trying to work out some of my questions!

I do believe that the sqn ORB must be incorrect and that Terence David Horne 1806265 is the right person.

I have been on forces reunited and found the Dave Horne mentioned with the right service number and sent an e-mail through the website. However as they send the e-mail themselves without you knowing the address it remains unclear if he will actually receive the e-mail or if he even has an active account. We can only hope!

As of yet no luck with finding a Terence D Horne of 192.com either that matches but will remian positive and keep trying!

Thanks again for all the help and advice!!

Cheers,
Ashley