Service record Questions.

[Guest IanG65]

I have read with great interest a lot of info on the forum here regarding service records.I understand that the building where they were stored was bombed in WW2 and so its a flip of the coin if your relatives record still exists.

My question was is there an index by name or by service number for those records that do survive?

Now I know for certain that after my Great Grandfather died that my Great Grandmother recieved a pension.

Would the documents to her pension application have been kept in his Service record or were they kept by another Govt dept and indeed survived to exist today?

If pension documents are available does anyone have the info where I might find them?

I am dealing with a very common surname (Smith) so any help to narrow the field so to say is a good thing.

Thanks any advice on this one would be greatly appreciated. Ian.

[Chris_Baker]

Hello Ian

Amazingly, when the National Archives undertook the huge project to microfilm millions of the (paper) records, no index was created.

Pension documents were stored with the military file. The WO364 and PIN26 series of papers at the NA hold a sample of military service records that were not at the archive when it was burned. Those in WO364 were with the Ministry of Pensions at the time. Thus this collection is virtually all papers of men who were pensioned; but of course many more are in WO363 or lost.