16.Military Research Enquiry Section

[Seeker]

Good evening to everyone,

yesterday I did some researches in a state archive near my home town, here in Germany.
It was my intention to find some documents which are telling something about plane crashes in my administrative district. I had luck, I found a list of british planes which crashed in my distrcit in the years from 1941 to 1945.
This list was made by the administrative pesonal of the administrative district office.
They got the order to establish this list by a Captain Mulligan from the 16.Military Research Enquiry Section in Heidelberg/Germany in 1947.

Does somebody know where the collection of the records from this section are storing today?Maybe in an archive in London?

With many regards

Felix

[ssg keay]

Darn Felix, you are fast

[RodM]

Hi Felix,

the MRES is actually the Missing Research & Enquiry Service.

Administrative records of the MRES are held by the National Archives at Kew, London.

The actual casualty investigation files are still retained by the British Ministry of Defence and remain classified.

As part of its work in post-war Germany the MRES often canvassed the local administrative districts to obtain either listings of known aircraft crashes in the area or listings from cemetery records of known burials in the area. Often, a record of these communications is still held by the district archives, as you've discovered.

Cheers

Rod

[Seeker]

Hi Rod,

thanks for you information.That's right.I found such a list for one district in an archive here in Germany.But I'm searching for others from other districts.Normally they have to be in the state archive, where I found the first one.But they aren't.
The problem is that we had in the 70s here in Germany a municipal reformation and in cause of this a lot of old papers were thrown away.Especially in small communities where nobody knew the historical worth of them.

I am only interested in finalized cases.I hope they are still accessible.
What I also hope to find (and maybe you know if this is also in the MRES records) are the Casualty Enquiry Investigation Reports. I think they are very interesting, because you can read what conclusion was made by the exhumation and in a lot of cases there are also some words on the course of events regarding the the crash.

With many regards

Felix

PS: Had a look to the catalogue some minutes ago.Under access conditions you can read "Records not yet transferrerd.So does that mean there's no chance for a normal person to have a look into them?

[RodM]

Hi Felix,

you are correct in that the individual casualty enquiries are inaccessible. At the National Archives (TNA), Kew, a new group was established within the AIR series a couple of years ago - AIR 81 - in the expectation that the files would eventually be transferred to that establishment.

Apparently a review was started a couple of years ago to determine the suitability of the records for early transfer to the TNA (the files were originally classified and protected by the 75 or 100 year rule). I do not know if this review has been finished but, in any event, no files have yet been transferred to TNA.

Cheers

Rod

[Alan Clark]

If any crew members on aircraft in your area were Australian or Canadian personnel then you can get the copies of their files from the respective national archvies.

The Australian ones are particularly easy, and probably contain the same level of information that is held in the British files. They are in the file group A705.

[Seeker]

@RodM: Thanks for your interesting and competent information.

Originally Posted by Alan Clark

If any crew members on aircraft in your area were Australian or Canadian personnel then you can get the copies of their files from the respective national archvies.

The Australian ones are particularly easy, and probably contain the same level of information that is held in the British files. They are in the file group A705.

Hi Alan thank you for mentioning, but I still know this possibility.Very helpful in some cases.

With many regards

Felix