The luck of the draw

[NigelS]

Is there any detailed knowledge of the bombing and storage at Arnside Street, several questions come to mind:

Was the warehouse hit directly or did the fire spread from adjoining buildings, similarly did the fire start in the records or elsewhere in the building; was the fire started directly by incendaries or did it come about through some other source of ignition caused by the bombing. Were the records kept on more than one floor; if so did some floors fair better than others; did any floors/walls roof collapse - highly likely, depending on the buildings construction - as this would have caused even more mixing.

I would have thought that the effects of the salvage, subsequent storage and recovery/copying might have caused more of the randomness of what's left today than that of the fire (and the act of extinguishing it) alone; A direct blast would, as well as destroying many, have scattered and damaged others and the fire would, it goes without saying, as well as completely destroying many would have spread others to the wind through updrafts etc. Once the fire had been extinguished (or left to burn out), thinking of how tightly packed papers & books burn, I would have thought it likely that many of the files that have survived today might not have been too far from their, probably ordered, original locations. The fact that the files were salvaged, and not just abandoned, indicates that some importance was placed in doing so, and that it might possibly have been carried out with some care rather than just leaving it to the casual whim of the labourers involved. So a potential Phd project for a forensic archaelogist as well as Chris's Mathematical one!

Thinking of how the files would have been stored how many systems could there have been? as Chris said previously, it's unlikely that there wouldn't have been a system of some sort as there would be no point in storing them unless a retrieval was thought likely to be necessary at some stage in the future; a few that come to mind; and there are doubtless many others:

1) by regiment and/or Bn - many men served with more than one - could be the final one served with.

2) By service No. - unlikely due to different systems involved extensive cross referencing would be required if records for a particular man needed to be retrieved based using his surname

3) full Alphabetical - although the best method for retrieval of a given man's record, no evidence -as yet- to show it was in use!

4) Date - of enlistment/ discharge or death - can't see a practical reason for doing it this way though, and not easy to track a given man's record down easily

5) where discharged from or where records were held at time of death (possibly alphabetical within that)

Any system involved might have depended on how the files were stored when active: centrally or dispersed; ie if the files were transferred into a central storage depot from dispersed locations when put into storage they may have then been stored based on where they were held originally.

No answers I'm afraid, just a lot of thoughts & speculation on my part

NigelS

[David B]

Chris,

I've had another look at my relations service records to see what survived and what didn't.

I have relations with surname starting with B - one survives (rather burnt though) and the other didnt. The first was in the ASC and the

second Jersey contingent/Royal Irish Rifles and the hampshire rgt.

Relation with surname H. RGA survived, ASC survived and one in 2 Royal irish Rifles and Royal Ulster Rifles did not survive.

This leads me to think that the records may have been stacked by regiment and not by alphabetical order, certainly it would appear that the Irish

regiments may have got the chop.

Regards David/Canberra

[shinglma]

I've noticed a number of misfiled papers on the microfilms (smiths amongst the browns etc) are soldiers in the same regiment with adjacent numbers to the one in question.

I've always wondered if this suggested they were in regiment/regimental number order?

Could be a coincidence but I've noticed it on a number of occasions only recently.

Mike S

[EastSurrey]

Nah. It doesn't feel right. No War Office warehouse would not be organised on some logical basis, even if it was complex and, as someone said above, some minor "flaws" due to human nature or space restrictions. The effects of fire add a certain degree of randomness, but I am sure that with the full data, the right analytical approach and some mathematical modelling it would be possible to recreate the layout. There's a PhD in there for someone.

I have a copy of a letter sent to my greatuncle,Douglas S.Palmer, from Arnside Street in January 1939.He had served in the Hampshire Yeomanry and then Cavalry Machine Gun Corps ,from 1914 to 1920.His service no. was 101977.The letter gives basic details of his service.The official reference on the letter is MGC/101977/174L(?).This would seem to indicate to me that filing was by regiment/corps.

I have looked for the "Burnt records"of both Douglas and a number of his comrades listed on the CMGC medal rolls,with no success at all.This would seem confirmation that they were filed together,and in one of the areas where the records were totally destroyed.

Michael

[bantamforgot]

Make what you may of this but none of my four relatives mentioned above named Braddock have survived , different regiments / units !

Thanks to Kevin & david.

Colin.

[Marc Thompson]

The following link on Arnside Street may be of interest to those who haven't come across this already.

Based on several hundred searches for Hampshire Regiment men, I've never found a surviving service record for a Hampshire Regiment fatality (killed in action, died of wounds or disease etc) in WO363. I'm convinced that all 8,000 odd have been destroyed. This suggests that for this regiment at least files were split in some manner.

I believe that the post 1920 service records still retained by MoD are held Army wide by date of birth - I don't see how such a system could have been adopted for those records held at Arnside.

Marc

[bantamforgot]

Hello Marc,

I was given to understand that pension records of men kia were apart from the service records, if this is so where would they be , still at Arnside?

Colin.

[Keith Woodland]

I've noticed a number of misfiled papers on the microfilms (smiths amongst the browns etc) are soldiers in the same regiment with adjacent numbers to the one in question.

I've always wondered if this suggested they were in regiment/regimental number order?

Could be a coincidence but I've noticed it on a number of occasions only recently.

Mike S

Whilst on my first visit to Kew yesterday, where I found my Grandfathers record, PTE William R Woodland, in amongst the Woodlands was a man called Ball, which threw me as that was my Grandmothers maiden name. It turned ot only to be a coincidence but supports the notion that not all papers are filed exactly where they should be.

[NigelS]

I was given to understand that pension records of men kia were apart from the service records, if this is so where would they be , still at Arnside?

Chris Baker gives details on the LLT http://www.1914-1918.net/grandad/records.htm

Hope you don't mind me quoting from there Chris

The "unburnt series". It was discovered that some of the records were not in the building when it was burned. They had been taken to the Ministry of Pensions for analysis.

Just a thought - we are used to seeing the files in alphabetical order as that's the way they appear on the micro film; if these had been removed for analysis might they have originally been kept in an order that would have allowed them to have been returned to their original location in what became the "burnt" series once the analysis had been completed? If the paper files have been kept (?) as originally filed (?) and not re-sorted in to, say, alphabetical order, might this give a clue as to how the burnt series were filed at the time of the fire?

This raises an issue on the microfilming: each page must have been photographed as an individual frame: was the microfilm generated directly from this or would a negative (or positive) have been produced as an intermediate stage for each page which would then have been processed to obtain the microfilm roll. The reason for posing this is that it would determine whether the paper files were sorted to assist micro filming in alphabetical order or whether it was the resulting negatives (or positives) which were sorted and whether there is any chance of determining how they were originally filed. Hope this makes sense !

If the original paper files have been kept, I suspect that they're not accessible to the general public; if they don't it's purely an academic matter.

NigelS

[David B]

Marc,

you could add one more to your missing records, my father was transferred to the Hampshires in early 1918 and

his records are missing too.

David

[KONDOA]

From my men I consider the following possible. Exclude,all pension records, discharged, or commissioned and I get:

Documents were stored in alphabetical blocks on a per unit basis.

The outer records of each block appear to be the ones missing.

I seem to have mens records for each alphabetical block or where blocks were amalgamated due to small number of records for the middle range of second surname letters but not the early or late surname second letters.

However some name blocks contain no surviving records.

Only a theory based upon 336 men.

Roop

Roop

[6th Shropshires]

I had not noticed this thread before and posted a thread today as follows :-

I have noticed that I have found a high % of K.S.L.I. men who transfarred to L.C. records.

Here are four L.C. blockes of numbers that have good hit rates

437198 to 437209 (these are K.S.L.I. men who trans to 12/K.O. then trans. again to L.C.), out of this block I have the names of ten men, and out of this ten I have service papers for all ten.

437149 to 437160 out of this block I have the names of ten men, of which I have the service papers of 8 of them. The other two have surnames that are not yet on-line.

436544 to 436576 out of this block I have the names of 18 men, of which I have the service papers of 16 of them.

242622 to 242756 (from 242690 to 242756 the names are O to Z) out of this block I have the names of 44 men, of which I have the service papers of 30 of them.

Does anyone know at the time of the Blitz, if the service papers where sorted By Regiments/Corps. I only ask because this could be why some units have a good % of service papers that surived.

I have also noticed some of the same points that other members have noticed like

Mike's post

I've noticed a number of misfiled papers on the microfilms (smiths amongst the browns etc) are soldiers in the same regiment with adjacent numbers to the one in question.

& Roop's

Documents were stored in alphabetical blocks on a per unit basis.

The outer records of each block appear to be the ones missing

& I have noticed that some transfares to other Regiments from the K.S.L.I. have a good hits rate while others have a few low hit rate.

If I was a betting person, I would place my money on the records being stored by Regiment/corps but I think I will keep my money in my pocket at moment because I not 100% sure.

Annette