RAF WWII Operational and Flying Accident Casualty Files in The National Archives: Exploring Their Contents

By Mary Hudson

“A journey through the original RAF Casualty Branch files, and all the other available sources of information relating to RAF wartime casualties.” —Military Historical Society

At its height during the Second World War, the RAF totaled 185,000 personnel. All information concerning casualties was carefully complied at the Air Ministry and now, from these the official records, those covering operational losses (in the air and on the ground) and flying accidents are being made available to the public through The National Archives.

This huge collection of casualty files contains a wealth of contemporary documentation from a variety of sources including captured German records. It includes official documents, examples of which are given, accounts of searches undertaken to establish the fate of the missing, places of burial, copies of information received from the International Red Cross and from sources within enemy occupied lands, as well as letters from family and friends some of which reveal dark secrets of bigamy, adultery, illegitimacy, debt and dishonor.

In this groundbreaking book, Mary Hudson has used her expert knowledge to provide an invaluable guide to the understanding of these records for use by researchers and family members alike.

“An intriguing work bringing the fruits of many years of inside experience into the hands of those trying to find the missing piece in the jigsaw of a family tree or any RAF historian.” —The Shackleton Association

“Fascinating . . . illustrates the dedication of the teams who handled the difficult issues of death and the missing in a very compassionate and dedicated manner.” —Journal of The Orders & Medals Research Society

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781526783547

Book preview

Introduction

The term ‘casualty’ covers death, wounding, injuries and sickness suffered by members of the armed forces (whatever the cause) and also individuals taken prisoner. There are thousands and thousands of them from the Second World War alone. At that time each of the British services had its own casualty handling department. The Royal Navy’s casualty department was part of the Admiralty, the Army’s was a department of the War Office and that of the Royal Air Force was part of the Air Ministry.

A photograph, taken in 1945, of the wreckage of Halifax LK75 lying in a street in Düsseldorf. The aircraft from 10 Squadron crashed on 8 April 1945. It was taking part in an attack on Hamburg. Five of the crew died and two were injured.

The Air Ministry Casualty Branch had the responsibility for handling all casualties involving members of the RAF, RAF Voluntary Reserve (RAFVR), the RAF Auxiliary Air Force (RAF Aux AF), Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service (PMRAFNS) and their Reserves, and also initial casualty handling for members of Dominion Air Forces and foreign nationals serving with the RAF including those from the remnants of Allied Air Forces such as those of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, the Netherlands and the Free French. Understanding the role of the Air Ministry Casualty Branch is an important element in understanding the contents of the P Files and so I have included some background information on the Air Ministry Casualty Branch and the role and tasks of the sections within it.

The P4 (Casualty) Files, commonly referred to now as RAF Casualty Files, are the files opened for each casualty notified to the S7 (Casualty) Branch of the Air Ministry and its successor P4 (Casualty). It is important to remember that the P Files contain a collection of working documents which were intended for use by the Air Ministry Casualty Branch and the idea that they would eventually be perused by members of the public was not considered. The files were referred to by the Casualty Branch as P Files, the P standing for Personnel. The files can relate to a single individual or to a number of persons, such as the whole crew of an aircraft, or all the casualties suffered in a single incident. The contents of the P Files are often not in good condition and some documents can be difficult to read. Wartime shortages meant the quality of paper used was poor and was unable to stand up well to the frequent handling of the files. Shortage of paper itself resulted in scraps of paper being used or information being recorded on the back of previously used paper. Files which were handled the least are in the best condition and inevitably it is P Files concerning aircraft lost with several crew on board which are in the worst condition. Papers particularly badly affected are the RAF Missing Research and Enquiry Service reports.

The various sections within the Casualty Branch were the originators of a considerable amount of the contents of the Casualty Files but all correspondence received by the Casualty Branch relating to the casualty (or casualties) the file covered was placed on it. For example, letters to and from next of kin were added to the relevant P File. These letters are often very poignant but there are also cases where married men had girlfriends and the files contain letters from both wife and girlfriend. Some letters reveal other family secrets such as illegitimate children, bigamous marriages and financial hardship, or express sentiments which a person today would find distasteful. The Air Ministry Casualty Branch did its best to deal with all tactfully and sympathetically.

A word of warning needs to be included at this point. If you are planning to research a family member using the Casualty P Files you should be aware that the information you find could well be distressing. In addition to the type of information outlined above, the contents of the P Files are, on occasion, gruesome in their detail, and anyone reading them needs to be aware of this. Unfortunately, when an aircraft crashes, the impact usually causes severe injuries to the bodies of the crew. There are many cases of crashes in occupied Europe were it was impossible for those gathering the remains and clearing the wreckage to determine how many crew members were on board. Similarly when an aircraft blew up in mid-air, especially with a bomb-load still on board, the retrieval of remains was complicated.

The RAF documents included in the files are full of abbreviations and acronyms; indeed there is a standing joke amongst service personnel that the RAF has swallowed a Scrabble board. This habit of using abbreviations can make the documents difficult for the uninitiated to understand and I have tried to make the meaning clear with explanations and ‘translations’.

Not all RAF Casualty Files have been selected by the National Archives for permanent preservation in their collections. The RAF Casualty Branch P Files which have been chosen relate to the period of the Second World War. It is important to note that while all service personnel who served during the Second World War were regarded as being on active service, they were not always classed as being operational. The files selected by the National Archives cover RAF casualties suffered as the result of operations in the air and on the ground (such as air attacks against RAF stations), and flying accidents suffered either in training or while operational. The P Files are held in the National Archives under reference AIR81 ‘P4(Cas) Files relating to casualties suffered during Air operations and aircraft accidents 1939-1945’ and can be searched by the surname of an individual, the place or location of the incident, date of the incident and type of aircraft. It is these P Files commonly called RAF Casualty Files which are the subject of this guide.

The P Files relating to casualties suffered through sickness, death from illness or natural causes, suicides, road traffic accidents (other than those occurring on operations overseas) and non-operational ground accidents, have not been selected for preservation in the National Archives. These Casualty P Files have been retained by the Ministry of Defence and requests for information from them should be sent to the Air Historical Branch (RAF). Family researchers may also wish to contact the England and Wales General Registry Office which holds a consolidated index of RAF War Deaths for all ranks from 1939 to 1948.

Part 1

Casualty Handling of the Dead, Missing, Wounded and Injured

Chapter 1

The Air Ministry Casualty Branch

Early Days

‘This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.’

With these words, at 11.15 am on 3 September 1939 the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced to the British people, via BBC radio, the start of the Second World War. The Royal Air Force was immediately involved and less than one hour later a Blenheim aircraft took off from RAF Wyton near Huntingdon to reconnoitre the German Naval bases on their North Sea coast. The Blenheim pilot spotted German capital ships in the Schillig Roads and, in the late afternoon, twenty-seven aircraft from Bomber Command took off to attack them. Daylight was fading; the weather deteriorated and despite lengthy searching the aircraft failed to find the ships. All returned safely to base, the last landed close to midnight.

The next morning, 4 September 1939, a further reconnaissance flight confirmed the German ships were still in Wilhelmshaven and a second attempt to attack them was made. A force of fifteen Blenheims was involved, while fourteen Wellington aircraft were sent to attack shipping at Brunsbüttel. Seven out of these aircraft were lost; five Blenheims and two Wellingtons together with their crews; only two men survived to become prisoners of war. The Royal Air Force had suffered its first casualties of the war; the twenty-four young air crew who lost their lives were the first of the 70,253 officers, Non Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and airmen killed or missing on operations between 3 September 1939 and 14 August 1945.¹ Of those who were lost, the oldest were in their fifties and the youngest was 16-year-old Flight Sergeant E.J. Wight, an Air Gunner who had lied about his age to join the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). He was killed on a training flight with 428 Squadron RCAF on 30 April 1945, only a week before the end of the War in Europe. Many other air crew were killed or injured in flying accidents.

In addition to the losses suffered during air operations, other RAF fatal casualties were suffered on the ground. These resulted from enemy action, ground accidents at airfields, road traffic accidents, losses at sea during transit to overseas stations, and some personnel – often ground crew who contracted pneumonia when servicing aircraft in the open in all weathers – died from natural causes. In addition to these there were non-fatal casualties: the prisoners of war, the sick, the injured or the wounded who added many thousands more to the total casualty figures for the Second World War, but it was clear from early on that the Royal Air Force needed a robust casualty organisation capable of dealing with such enormous numbers.

The Royal Air Force’s first experience of casualty handling had come during the First World War, with the RAF’s formation on 1 April 1918. A few months later Air Ministry Order Number 63 dated 27 September 1918 created a department designated P2(Cas), within the Directorate of Air Personnel Services to be ‘responsible for all questions relating to casualties to officers and ranks’.

The interwar years saw various reorganisations of the Air Ministry; the Secretarial Division (which was responsible to the Air Member for Personnel²) was given the task of casualty handling for the Royal Air Force. The part of the Division which was given the job was known as S7(Cas) and it was to them that the news of the losses suffered on 4 September 1939 was sent. All the information that the staff of S7(Cas) had from the squadrons who had taken part was that seven aircraft were overdue and their crews missing. Frustratingly S7 had no other sources of information about the fate of the lost crews other than that provided by the BBC which listened to German broadcasts and other media. Three of the aircrew who had been captured were interviewed on German radio. The Germans had also broadcast information about the burial of Sergeant D.E. Jarvis, killed during the raid against Brunsbüttel. This broadcast was picked up by the BBC and through them the Air Ministry learnt that Sergeant Jarvis had been buried at Cuxhaven Naval Cemetery. ‘One company of German sailors and a naval band paid honours at the funeral. The Commander of Wilhelmshaven sent a wreath, and was represented at the funeral.’³ Three weeks later the families of two survivors from the Wellington attack on Brunsbüttel passed on details of what had occurred to the Air Ministry. They were able to do so because the Germans had permitted the two captured airmen, who were in hospital, to communicate with their relatives, and the two prisoners had been able to send their families details of what had happened.

It was clear that relying on information being supplied through unofficial sources was a highly unsatisfactory situation and immediate action was taken to improve the matter. The S7 branch contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva for advice. With the help of the ICRC a system which allowed the passage of official information from Germany about the fate of Royal Air Force and Dominion aircrew was established. The Germans provided Totenlisten (Death Lists) to the ICRC which acted as an intermediary in accordance with the 1929 Geneva Conventions. The information received from the Germans was then passed from the ICRC to the British authorities. The first German list of RAF injured and dead was passed to the Air Ministry by the ICRC in October 1939 and published in Missing Memorandum No 8 issued by S7 Cas on 14 October 1939. Below are examples of the information received from the German authorities in the first List:⁴

The ICRC also passed any information which they received from other sources through to the British authorities. The new system for receiving information was put into place swiftly; the first Totenliste came through on 14 October 1939.⁵ However, Totenliste information was not always accurate, as can be seen from the example below.

The Totenliste extract for the crew of Lancaster W4828 of 103 Squadron which crashed near Le Mans France on the night of 13/14 April 1943.

Squadron Leader Sinkinson of the Missing Research Section (MRS) of the Casualty Branch gave some interesting examples of inaccuracies found in Totenliste information. One was that the Germans had reported the death of a sergeant but provided the name and service number of a WAAF! The Casualty Branch’s careful checks established that the sergeant had in fact exchanged identity discs with his girlfriend. It was circumstances such as this that led to stories that WAAFs had been smuggled onto aircraft by bomber crews and had been killed on operations. No evidence has ever been found to support this. In another instance the Germans sent information that an airman called Llude Sing Cuccu had been shot down and killed over France in January 1944. In fact the words were from an Elizabethan song which had been parodied in Tee Emm, a monthly magazine produced by RAF Training Command. Checks by the Casualty Branch established that Pilot Officer James Bassett, lost on 10 January 1944, had painted the words ‘Llude Sing Cuccu’ on his Mae West (life jacket).⁶ The Germans had assumed that these words were his name as it was common for Mae Wests to be marked with some indication of their owner’s identity.

Flight Lieutenant ‘Paddy’ Finucane together with other pilots of 452 Squadron RAAF at RAF Kenley in 1941. All are wearing their ‘Mae West’ life jackets. The pilot 2nd from left has his name on his life jacket; another has used a cartoon saint to identify his Mae West while a third pilot has used the sign for the Ace of Spades.

Before D-Day the main source of official information was the Totenliste and the answers to British enquiries sent by the German authorities via the ICRC in Geneva. However, there were various other sources of information about the fate of aircraft and their crews. The national Red Cross organizations of France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands passed information to Britain with the permission of the German authorities, and in addition there were other organizations that passed information to the Air Ministry both before and after the Liberation. These included the French Anciens Combattants (Veterans), the Aero Club de France, and (primarily in the early stages of the war) the German Aero Club also forwarded information on losses in Germany to the Royal Aero Club in the UK.⁷ Members of resistance groups and secret agents operating in occupied countries also provided information on missing air crew and crashed aircraft. RAF Air Attachés in neutral countries such as Sweden also forwarded information which had been passed to them. Inevitably information from such sources contained inaccuracies and everything had to be carefully checked by the RAF Casualty Branch.

An ICRC Death Notice completed by the German Authorities providing information about an Unknown English airman killed when his aircraft crashed on 3 September 1943 and buried on 9 September. The aircraft crashed at Suttrup near Frerens, District of Lingen-Ems. The Unknown was a member of the crew of Lancaster ED410 which was lost on an operation against Berlin. Postwar the crew’s remains were moved from Neuer Friedhof Cemetery to Reichswald Forest War Cemetery.

In October 1939 it was announced that a new branch within the Air Ministry’s Directorate of Personnel Services would be responsible for casualty handling. The new branch was designated P4 (Casualty), usually shortened to Cas. The P indicated that it was a Personnel Branch. The new branch was headed by Wing Commander Roger Burges (a former Royal Navy Commander) and the main element was housed in London. Initially the new P4(Cas) was responsible for handling all casualties involving officers of the Royal Air Force, the Auxiliary Air Force (AAF), the RAF Voluntary Reserve, the Women’s’ Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), the Princes Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service (PMRAFNS) and their Reserves and also initial casualty handling for non-commissioned ranks of the RAF and members of Dominion Air Forces and foreign nationals serving with the RAF. By May 1941 the wartime Casualty Handling Procedures had been formalized in Air Publication 1922 Notes on Casualty Procedure in War, which provided guidance on casualty handling and was issued to all RAF units. A second edition was issued in 1943.

In April 1943 the aspects of casualty procedures involving non-commissioned ranks, (often referred to as ‘Other Ranks’), which had been handled by an section of the old S7 based in the Royal Air Force Record Office in Gloucester, were taken over by P4(Cas). Casualty handling for both officers and other ranks was thus brought together under P4(Cas) in new offices at 73/77 Oxford Street, London.

The newly amalgamated P4(Cas) was split into various departments staffed by a mixture of RAF, WAAF and civil servants. The departments were:

Far East Casualties

Following the Japanese attacks in December 1941 a special Section was established to handle the Far East casualties; this was co-located with P4(Cas). With Japan’s entry into the war the P4(Cas) Branch began to be notified of losses in the Far East but information was sketchy. The Japanese were by no means as punctilious as the Germans in notifying the Allies about killed and captured personnel, nor did they provide information about the hundreds of Allied prisoners who died in captivity.

In addition to the Japanese stance on the provision of information, the conditions in which the fighting was taking place made definite information other than that a person was missing difficult to obtain. As well as those killed and captured in late 1941 and early 1942 many other Air Force personnel were lost in the fight back. RAF and Dominion aircraft and crews were