Hello, Im new here and Im looking for help to find my G.Grandfather Arthur Drummond Steel ( born Feb 1897, Cardiff, Wales ) who was an ambulance driver in the R.A.M.C. Thats all I know about him,, so as you can see there is much from me to learn. I am also looking for his son ( my grandfather ) Robert Steel ( Oct 1923 , Cardiff, Wales ) who was part of the ground crew for the RAF. I heard through the family that was shipped to Port Albert , Ontario to train people on how to fix airplanes. If anyone could help me research these names, It would be so appreciated !! Thanks and i hope to here from you Chris Stel
Hi Chris, welcome to the forum. First tings first you need to gather together as much basic info about their service as you can. Do you happen to have any service numbers for them? That is a perfect way of tracking them down, but don't worry if you don't. Potential dates of service, who they were with, where they may have been at any time in the war. Any battles they may have been associated with? Any minor little detail will aid the search. Once you have all of this together then the next step is to contact the Ministry Of Defence's service records center. Go here to find out what you first need and then who to contact by letter initially in order to get your grandfather's and G Grandfathers records. Please be aware as you are next of kin you are put on the bottom of a very long list. Priority is given to Ex-personnel whop are requesting their own records. Now your Great Grandfather probably served in WW1? If so there may be no service records left in existence after a Luftwaffe incendiary landed on the records office during the Blitz. Only a fraction of pre-1940 records are left intact. For the RAMC click here and have a wander around their official site. As to your grandfather this is going to be trickier as there are a wide variety of things he may have been in the RAF. For this you ill need some kind of idea from letters, records etc. the fact you know he was obviously shipped out to one of the Empire Air Schools then this will help immensely. Here is the RAF Museum site. Have a gander though this. Failing that it may be that you'll have to contact the National Archive at Kew in order to get them to check some Operational Record Books once you have an idea of which station he may have been at. Good luck Chris, you've got a lot of searching to do.
Hi Chris, Welcome Chris, i'm sure you'll be very happy with the help you can get here as most of the people within the forum have a vast knowledge of WW2 history. Hopefully you stay around and enjoy all the banter that goes on and also enjoy reading the other posts. The Raf did train personnel at Albert, Ontario, in Air Navigation and not as ground crew mainly on Liberators. The WW1 records that Kitty is on about are kept at Kew and are known as the burnt records and only about 20% of them survived the blitz. You might like to try checking the medal indexes first, these will tell you what entitlements your Gt Grandfather and Grandfather would of been entitled to. These are available online from the PRO website. If i can help any further let me know and i'll help you with what i can. Sniper eep:
Hi Chris, as Sniper says, the medal index is a good place to start. This seems to be the most likely candidate. The National Archives | DocumentsOnline | Image Details As the WW2 records haven't been publically released you would need to aply for your grandfather's srvice records (if you are the next of kin). It maybe possible for them to find a copy, even without a service number, if you provide full name, DoB, and any other details you have: Service records - RAF If you can ascertain unit and dates of service (which is likely to be from 1941 onwards) and confiem that he served in Canada then it would worth be posting a message on RafCommands Forums - Powered by vBulletin as there are a number of members who specialise in RCAF/RAF training stations there.
