National Archives Kew, London

[mikeshilton]

Does any one know if the A.I 12 USAFE/Air Ministry files on the Luftwaffe are located at Kew? (I believe two sets are in the U.S) , I phoned their collections dep't today to ask, but they weren't sure, either if they had them, or where they might be. If they do have them, I'd really appreciate any help as to where to look, thanks in anticipation, Mike.

[Bruce Dennis]

Can you give an example or two of the contents?

Bruce

[Nick Beale]

Have you tried the searchable online catalogue on the NA website? If you keep trying different keywords you can usually get what you're after in the end.

[mikeshilton]

Hello Bruce, Nick, thank you for the replies, I first came across a reference to the documents on the Axis History forum where a copy of an interesting document on aircraft maintenance was posted, this is what was at the end of the post:-

"After the war, the A.I.12/Air Ministry sent intelligence “parties” into the Reich to investigate every aspect of the Luftwaffe by interviewing hundreds of former Luftwaffe officers and exploiting what documents could be found. Throughout the fall of 1945, all of 1946 and much of 1947, A.I.12 issued hundreds of studies on every imaginable aspect of the Luftwaffe and range from a modest 30 to 35 pages all the way up to multi-part studies of 450 pages per part. Here’s an example of one:

A.I.12/USAFE/M.24. Air Ministry/USAFE. Intelligence Party (OKL). Intelligence Report No. 24, 5 September 1945. Aircraft Maintenance and Repair Units. There are a good 25 to 30 of these studies just on the repair and maintenance of aircraft in the Luftwaffe. Each is highly detailed and complete with charts and tables.

Most of the A.I.12 studies are available at the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, Alabama, and complete runs are available at both the U.S. National Archives in WashDC and the U.K. National Archives on London. ".

I don't know if that helps Bruce, I have tried various permutations of search criteria Nick, but haven't come across them yet. I'm back at the NA in early September and will look through some of the other "AIR" class lists in case they are hidden away, thanks for the help, Mike.

[Bruce Dennis]

Mike,
I am certain that there is no single group of files at Kew that mirrors the collection ‘A.I 12 USAFE/Air Ministry files’ in the US. However, as I am sure you know, there are hundreds of files held at Kew that report on different aspects of the defeated Luftwaffe, based on investigative work between 1944 and 1949. These are scattered, but most seem to be in AIR 2, 8, 10 and 40 as individual subjects. You can see a sample of these by searching ‘German’ in the online TNA catalogue and limiting the years to 1946 – 1949 and the series to AIR. I suspect that many of these files are also found in the US archives, and perhaps they are neatly grouped in ‘A.I 12 USAFE/Air Ministry files’.

Unless you can get an index of the A.I 12 USAFE/Air Ministry group, it will be difficult to know which TNA files are common to both archives.

Hope this helps,
Bruce

[Amrit1]

An interesting article on the files:

http://www.indianamilitary.org/Freem...ationLusty.htm

and searching "air intelligence 12" (with the speech marks) returns 67 results at the NA (Kew)

[mikeshilton]

Thank you Bruce and Amrit1, thanks for the pointers, now I have somewhere to start looking, Mike.