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I have been trying to find info on my Gandfather for months, & have finally been handed a letter from a prisoner of war camp that was written by him.
On the top it has the following: 1531394 GNR BLAIR, W
Is this is army number?

His name was William Blair.

Also on the letter is the follwing:

Prisoner of War no: 91028
Camp name & no: Stalag 34L
Country: Germany.

How do I find out what Regiment he was in?

I know you have to send off for records from WW2 by post, but how long do they take?

I have searched for him for months and the thought of waiting more months for his records is driving me crazy!!!!!!!!!

Army Personnel Centre
MS Support Division
Parliamentary & Disclosure Branch
Disclosures 2 (Data Protection Cell)
Mail Point 535
Kentigern House
65 Brown Street
GLASGOW
G2 8EX

You can also enquire by email - not sure but you can google ministry of defence for it.

I was told by them in an email there is a 6 month wait!!!

Found the email for you

[email protected]

Telephone 0141 224 2507
Fax 0141 224 3172

There are WW2 POW records at Kew, so he might be amongst those. You'd have to go there, or get someone to go for you, but it would be a lot quicker than waiting for Army records!

I thought it would be a long wait - but never thought it would be that long!!!!

Thanks for replying.

Do you know how to find out if the number I have is his personal number?

Thanks for the email Lindylu, I will email them now.

1531394,is correct.,,,,, its his Service Number,,,,,,,,and will need to be quoted on all correspondence to MOD,,,,
there is a charge made for record information,

I contacted them first by email and to be honest I already had my relatives number and they just confirmed it for me. they were however very helpful and sent all necessary forms via email for me to complete.

It may be worth contacting them and telling them what you know to see if they can help. You MUST say you are the next of kin for that person as they will only give out the information for next of kin. I actually sent for my aunts fathers details but I said I was next of kin as I was doing it on her behalf.

By the way the cost is £30.00

Hi,

I have just emailed them now with a long list of questions and asking if I can go to a location to look at the records myself, as I am sure you can do this, but we will have to wait and see.

I just hope the wait has reduced a little bit, as the curiosity will kill me!!!!

I have waited for ages to find some info, and then to come to another full stop is so frustrating.

Does anyone know if they will be giving online access to the WW2 records anytime soon?

I don't think you will need to wait that long, my mother in law got her info quite quickly recently.
The cost is £30.00 and you will need proof that you are his NOK.
You can also write to the Medals Office which is part of the Sevice Personnel and Vetrans Agency (SPVA) for information on the medals he earned.
Angie

Angela, they have to send for the service persons file from TNT where they are stored. Non of these have yet been scanned or put on any computer system. So for a complete record print out which they will give you they are the only source.
Angela

Angie

Nice Name!!

Thanks for that info, maybe they are catching up with the backlog. I hope so.

I will wait for the email off them, and ask for the forms to be emailed to me, it cuts down a bit on the wait.

When I recieved them, I think I will post on here what the wait was, just to keep people updated.

Thanks for everyones advise.
Angi

WW2 service records probably won't be on release until would say around 2020. You can't look at them anywhere - they send you the info. Did you see my earlier post? You haven't mentioned it.

Just in case no one has mentioned it which i cant see , His rank is given as GNR which is a gunner in the Royal Artillery, not much help i know ,, but it might help in the search

George

A bit of advice: firstly, it depends entirely upon who at MoD deals with your query - all too few are amazingly helpful. The remainder are total numpties who do not deserve a job of any kind and will reject your enquiry for the most spurious of reasons - I've had at least a half-dozen of these morons rejecting my search becauase of a " lack of relavant information" despiting submitting full name, DATE and PLACE of birth, service number and unit served! And they have the cheek to debit my account for £30! Despite doing nothing but drink tea!!!

Robert, I do not think that you should make comments about the folks who work for the MOD on very low wages who do a great job despite the threat of job losses etc. I can assure you that they do not sit around drinking tea.
They have details that they require to do the search, and without which they cannot get the file sent to them from store.
The number of records they have to get out are emense and they are often much busier than you could ever believe.
Angela

Nudged for Claire

If anyones interested - I found that TRPR stands for Trumpeter.

Angi

Angi, normally Tpr means Trooper, what regiment or corps was he in?
I have been around the military for many years one way or another so therefore know quite a bit about them.
Angela

I asked on a WW2 website I found.
I don't know whether I'm allowed to put the website on here, if someone can tell me.

I posted a message and quite a few people stated it was trumpeter.

Angi