RAF Casualty Packs

Hi Paul

Yes 1941 is correct, The AM1180 shows 3/5/41. I’m now wondering if the date stated is the night they took off or if it is the date of the actual crash which in this case was 3am in the morning after the take off?

Cheers
James

James May 3 1940 or 1941 ? In your original mail you say 1940 but in latest 1941?

I assume 1941 is correct ?

Thanks for the update, Paul. Bated breath!

Hi Paul

The details:

Date of incident: 3.5.41

Place of Incident: Dry Drayton. Cambs
Nature of Flight: Operational Night
Pilot: Flt Lt Raymond Cruickshank DFC
Stirling Mk 1
RAF No.: N6012

o 33364 Flight Lieutenant Raymond Alfred Cruickshank DFC and Bar. RAF Aged 23
o 572032 Sergeant Kenneth Frederick Wilson. RAF Aged 19
o 944678 Sergeant George William Smith. RAF Volunteer Reserve. Age 24
o 625698 Sergeant Samuel Arthur Hives. RAF Aged 21
o 755698 Flight Sergeant J McIntyre. RAF Volunteer Reserve. Age unknown
o 755776 Sergeant Eric Barratt: RAF Volunteer Reserve. Aged 21
o 969726 Sergeant R S Havery. RAF Volunteer Reserve. Age unknown

I have spoken to four people who were living around the crash site at the time – literally within 50 yards. I’d like to tie up their testimonies with the injuries to the crew.

Cheers
James

Ps a
New release of casualty packs Up to the I think end 1940’ia supposed to be dropping this
Month

James it would help if you could supply what you know about incident! Like type
Location
Names etc

Thanks

Paul

Hi

I have a particular UK crash that I am interested in on May 3rd 1940 so I am very interested in reading the report.

However I can’t find any reference to any of the records on the National Archives web site. TNA archieves are confusing at the best of times so I can’t tell whether I am just being daft or if there are actually no records on thier site?

Can anyone post a link to any of the records or a way of searching for them – or are they still not available to the public??

Cheers
James

The release is still ongoing.

I think (the last I heard) it was up to mid 1940 – but I may be behind on the actual position.

Paul McMillan will probably know!

Is there any update on progress with these?

The process to transfer these files is a massive one and is being conducted by a team of dedicated and enthusiastic MOD personnel. I was privileged to visit the facility and we reported on the process in a recent issue of ‘Britain at War’ magazine.

In some cases, there is ‘residual sensitivity’ and these issues need to be addressed. For example, a file could contain correspondence or memos between an Adjutant and CO, say, asking what should be done with the photographs found in a deceased casualty’s effects since they were clearly not of the deceased’s wife. That kind of thing. Plus, there is a good deal of graphic and unpleasant content, too, and the effect of such content on families has to be considered.

The scale of the whole task is breathtaking. It is a case of being patient and not berating those who really are working hard to bring this process to fruition.

Once the packs are transferred from the MOD facility they are ‘shelf ready’; in folders and TNA boxes, TNA reference numbers attached, acid free sleeves protecting delicate papers and objects and all metal/corrosive pins, tags and clips removed. That alone is a HUGE task.

It’s nearly 3/4 of a century since VJ Day, most of the participants are sadly gone and still we cannot access the information to answer questions for, for example, their ageing children many of whom are themselves dying of old age. Exactly what is so sensitive that can justify withholding so much information in bulk. It really does get tiresome taking bits of information here, a fragment there, when so much quality information is held on file. I do wish they’d just be honest and say they haven’t been allocated sufficient budget.

Along with the Casualty Packs, the Home Guard records seem to have returned to the land of buried files.

Will calm down now….

Paul McMillan was logged on and viewing this thread when I started to write this post. Paul, I recall that you listed loss dates and maybe even names or serial numbers for the first released batch of documents. Will you kindly refresh our memories? Now that I think of it, I believe you posted on that “other” forum. (I haven’t looked lately…)

Oh, to live long enough to actually view some of the documents I wish to study! Reminds me of the first words of the 1969 Zager and Evans hit song “In the Year 2525”:

“In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find…”

Find what? That the MoD has actually released 1944 & beyond casualty packs!

In 2012 my mother — the widow of an RAF airman killed on 29 Feb 1944 — requested Air Historical Branch transcriptions of key documents pertaining to 29 Feb ’44 and its aftermath, knowing that the AHB does not reproduce/copy actual documents. The transcriptions provided, while a revelation, were loaded with newly-introduced typographical errors, and omissions; I knew this because some of the transcribed docs were the same as those I’d already found in Aussie and Canadian archives (freely open to the public). The AHB work, by one individual, was shockingly bad, but the corrections were begrudgingly provided when I raised holy he**. Well, for the time being I have to take AHB’s word for the accuracy of corrections, since I still can’t see the documents…except for the ones I can compare to their counterparts in the Aussie and Canadian archives (freely open to the public…but I already said that, didn’t I?).

How wonderful it will be, one future decade, when casualty files I wish to view will actually be released. That is, the files not held back as being too sensitive for public, or next-of-kin, consumption!

Yep, at this rate we’ll all be dead, buried, turned to dust before the last of these files gets released.

Thanks Alan. Oh dear, so it’s worse than I thought. Just the non-operational casualties for four months has taken two and a half years, so far.

I contacted TNA in April and was told there was at that time no date for release, the next batch had been transferred to TNA from the MoD and were going through the process of being added to the archive, which apparently involves four departments within the archive agreeing with each other. The next batch look like the non-operational casualties from Sep 39 to Jan 40.

I think it might be. A decision was reached to do this in December 2012 following consultation, and the National Archive released the first lot of transferred files in Jan 2014, and that was Sept 1939 to May 1940.

Working on the oversimplified and hypothetical basis of ten months of files thus taking 14 months to process, May 44 would take five and a half years, taking until 2019.

Now when you add that actual casualty and crucially missing airman cases per month could only have risen considerably in the meantime, and that already even the next ten months or whatever the batch is seems somewhat overdue, I wouldn’t hold your breath even for that.

But then, I don’t actually know anything!

Beermat, the last I heard was they were working through the Casualty Branch P4 Missing Personnel reports in date order and that the 1944 report (which I am seeking) was not going to be available until late 2016 at the earliest. From what you say this may now seem a little optimistic?