England Royal Air Force Records for Family History - International Institute

History of the Royal Air Force
The Army’s Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was established in 1912 and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was founded in 1914. These grew out of early artillery and engineers’ experiments and manoeuvres with balloons as described concisely by Swinnerton in Family Tree Magazine (2000). He has also told us in Family Tree Magazine (2001) the political background to the merger of the RFC and RNAS to form the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1918 towards the end of World War II. The Women’s Royal Air Force was also formed then and the only complete muster list of the whole air force was compiled at that time.

Officer training was started at the Central Flying School of the RFC in 1912, but in 1920 the Royal Air Force College was established at Cranwell, as the equivalent of the Army’s Sandhurst and the Navy’s Dartmouth. Details on training,Officer Training Corps in boys’ schools and on the different Auxiliaries, such as the Air Transport Auxiliary and the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) can be found in Wilson.

There were various types of training units such as Initial Training Wing, Elementary Flying Training Schools and Operational Training Units. Technical airmen, those having served an apprenticeship as a fitter, rigger, armourer, mechanic and so forth, were usually trained at Halton RAF College.

Between the two world wars the RAF carved out a niche for itself providing alternatives to garrisoning tiny, far-flung outposts, carrying supplies, providing rescue and air-ambulance service and airlifting refugees. Hurst (1996) describes a good number of interesting books on special RAF historical topics for this period, and this is updated in Hurst (Baker’s Dozen. Family Tree Magazine Vol 13 #5, page 55-57).

The RAF came of age during the Second World War and the heroes immortalized in books and movies involving especially Biggin Hill RAF station, the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 and the Battle for London that autumn. When I was young we lived close enough to hear the aircraft at Biggin Hill post-war air shows, and every schoolboy could recognize the distinctive sound of each airplane engine.

Royal Air Force Organization
The RAF has a different structure than the army and navy, see below. It is based on a number of Commands specializing in certain duties, which are subdivided into several Groups covering certain geographic areas. These are made up of various Squadrons of, for example, 12 to 24 aircrafts.



There was also an air force peacetime equivalent of the militia or territorial army called the Auxiliary Air Force. During the Second World War these personnel were transferred to the RAF Volunteer Reserve and served alongside the regular air force. Wilson has demystified the complex details of RAF organization and rank, and explains the numbers and abbreviations prevalent in this service.

The RAF had 170 airfields in the UK in 1939 and a further 444 were built, usually hurriedly, during the war. When bases for flying boats, temporary parking bays, runway extensions, maintenance units, training schools for ground crew, storage depots, signals and medical units are included there were over 700 air bases or RAF Stations, some used by the US Air Force. Each station was directed by aStation Commander, and consisted of three Wings, Flying, Technical or Support, and Administration, directed by a Wing Commander. Each of these wings was further divided into Squadrons, Flights and Sections.

The staff consisted of officers and airmen, and the term aircrew was used for anyone who actually flew, regardless of his rank. All aircrew were volunteers for these jobs, and in the air the captain, who was always the pilot, was in command even if higher-ranking officers were aboard. There were no women aircrew until after World War II, but up to 182,000 women served at a time in clerical duties, as radio operators, mechanics, fitters, drivers, kitchen staff, batmen, coding and cyphering as well as bombing-up and operating radar.

Royal Air Force Records
Many of the same records as were described in the section on the army are also applicable to the RAF, in particular those relating to those who died in the line of duty, thus they will not be repeated here.

Naturally, air force records cover only the most recent century, and it comes as a disappointment to learn that they rarely note genealogical information except dates and places of birth, and next of kin, items which are probably already known to the researcher. The record searcher can, however, expect details about everyday life of the person employed in the air or ground crew.

It is worth investigating your family memorabilia for clues such as the air force number and where the person served. I have a couple of typical examples:


 * As the person registered for the One-Name Society for Brickett I was given a ditty box with an engraved name plate reading:


 * W.H. Brickett R.N. Air Service.

It had belonged to Walter Harold Brickett, (born 1894), who had no descendants, and is a wooden box 12 x 8" and 6" deep used by sailors to store personal odds and ends. His contains his passport dated 1929, several photographs of his wife, a ship and people in uniform, three war medals, and his wife’s 4" high silver chalice inscribed Crescent Tennis Club, Ladies Champion 1931, Mrs. E.F. Brickett. These provide several clues to start a search for his service records.


 * My parents received two military aerograph Christmas greeting cards from my Uncle Bernard Alfred Gardner serving in RAF ground crew in the Mediterranean in 1943 and 1944. These were standard forms, microfilmed and sent by air mail to the receiving country, then developed, printed on thin paper, cut to separate the letters, folded and inserted into window envelopes to show the recipient’s address and forwarded by ordinary mail. Plain ones were available for regular letters, and they saved precious paper in wartime as well as providing a far quicker service than regular sea mail. The censor naturally ensured that servicemen did not give their actual locations, but servicemen quoted their # and unit, thus we found these clues


 * Corporal B.A.Gardner 1167088 No 894 AMES RAF BNAF in 1943 Corporal B. Gardner 8005 AMES RAF CMF in 1944.

These would seem to relate to the Air Ministry Experimental Station of the British North Africa Force and the Central Mediterranean Force. This information is certainly sufficient to begin a search for his records.

RFC Records 1912-1918 Officers’ records will be found in the army records WO 339 or WO 374. A percentage of records of airmen discharged prior to April 1918 survive in classes WO 363 and 364 of the army service records, see the burnt and unburnt records in the section on the army.

RNAS Records 1914-1918&lt;br&lt; Officers records are in navy (Admiralty) class ADM 273, for which there is a name index, and 86 volumes of Other Ranks records are in ADM 188. These are for service up to 31 Mar 1918 and give the date and place of birth, physical description, date of enlistment, rating, description of ships or stations served upon, assessment of character and conduct, and date of discharge.

Bernard Gardner’s 1943 Xmas Card (From the personal collection of Dr. Penelope Christensen)



RAF Records 1914-1920 The researcher should download the relevant Public Record Office leaflets available from their website:


 * M28 Royal Air Force: Research and Development
 * Records
 * M49 RAF, RFC and RNAS: First World War,
 * 1914-1918: Service Records
 * M50 Royal Air Force: Second World War,
 * 1939- 1945: Service Records 
 * M57 Royal Air Force: Nurses and Nursing Services 
 * M70 Royal Air Force: Operational Records

The National Archives (TNA) Guide was authored by Spencer (2001), and there is useful material in Wilson (The Records of the Royal Air Force. How to find The Few), Bevan (Tracing Your Ancestors in the Public Record Office. ) and Herber (Ancestral Trails).

Officers
An officer’s career can be traced through the Air Force Lists, similar to those for the other services and published annually since 1918, but there is another called the Confidential Air List in AIR 10 covering 1939-1954. Officers’ Records for those discharged no later than the mid 1920s are in class AIR 76, arranged alphabetically giving men’s postings, next of kin, medals and date of death. Later ones are still held by the RAF: contact RAF Personnel and Training Command. Other material on officers such as combat reports, recommendations for promotion etc. can be found in AIR 1 and this is indexed (Bevan).

Other Ranks
Airmen’s Documents for RAF Enlistments #s 1-329,000, (mainly World War I), are in AIR 79 and arranged in RAF Service Number order, to which there is an admittedly poor index in AIR 78. AIR 79 usually gives date and place of birth, physical description, religion, next of kin, spouse and children, date of joining, promotions, units served in, medals earned and date of discharge.

The RAF Muster Roll shows all Other Ranks in the newly formed RAF on 1 Apr 1918, which is the basis of the alphabetical RFC, RNAS and RAF Register 1914-1919, a project by David J. Barnes described in his 3rd 2002 article. Service Records for the Women’s RAF 1914-1918 are in AIR 80.

Records of those with numbers higher than 329,000 and those below this number who went on to serve in World War II are still with the RAF and Ministry of Defence.

Fleet Air Arm Records
These are held by the Ministry of Defence and records are released with the same conditions as post-1920 army records. There is a Fleet Air Arm Museum at Ilchester, Somerset with further records on officers and ratings (Barnes 2002).

Miscellaneous
The RAF Archives and Museum at Hendon not only has planes and a card index to every plane that flew in the RAF, but also a huge collection of privately-deposited officers’ papers, as well as photographs and air log books. They have issued a series of information leaflets:


 * 1) Personnel Records (pre-1918)
 * 2) Personnel records (RAF: WAAF: WRAF)
 * 3) Royal Air Force Unit Records
 * 4) Royal Air Force Stations: Information Sources
 * 5) Aircraft-Service Histories

The RAF Association runs a magazine, Airmail, for ex-RAF personnel and accepts requests for contacting former RAF members. Cross and Cockade International is the First World War Aviation Historical Society and they have a website.

In parallel to army records there are RAF records of Casualties and Air Crashes, Courts Martial, Medals and Awards, Medical Records, and Prisoners of War and War Crimes. These are amply detailed in the TNA guide to RAF records written by William Spencer (2001).

Wilson describes several books containing narrative accounts of wartime experiences of airmen from different units, and she also has a good section on uniforms, badges and emblems. She has also compiled a RAF Index about RAF officers and other ranks.

An index of airmen is at the TNA, and is part of a project to extract all names of RAF other ranks from TNA records.

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