WW1 RN / WW2 MN

[Essexboy68]

Folks

My mother's aunt married twice, & it is her second husband I am trying research at present. The details I have are pretty vague, but here goes.....

His name was Joseph Connor (maybe Conner, O'Connor or O'Conner), but I always knew him as Joe, & I have always believed him to be the only WW1 veteran I ever met. He served in the RN, as far as I am aware, during WW1, having lied about his age (claiming to be either 16 or 18, which was older than his true age), in order to gain the higher rate of pay, I was told. I also seem to remember hearing that he later had to admit to his under-age enlistment in order to re-engage, re-enlist ( I am of the opinion he re-enlisted at some stage between the wars), or gain a position in the MN. He spoke of having been in the crew of the RN's first aircraft carrier, & I am told he was torpodeo'ed during the Battle of thae Atlantic (it was then I understand he met my great aunt, who was a widow). I can also remember him speaking of being on the ship that took the then Duke & Duchess of York on honeymoon, although I may have confused it with another Royal.

I have tried to use the NA records, but his name, in all spellings etc, seems to draw a blank. I know that there ae no medal cards for RN personnel, but understood some details could be found online.

If any Pals can offer ideas of where to search, I would be grateful (I will add now that there are 2 daughters & some grandchildren living, although I have always understood them to have no interest in this, & besides, they have other things, which are not appropriate to talk of here, to worry about). Am I right in assuming that records of WW2 campaign medals to MN personnel are available - I would imagine he qualified for War Medal, 39-45 & Atlantic Stars, but it is only an educated guess.

Many Thanks

Mark

[Jim Clay]

Mark

Look here for WW2 MN medals. And for RN seamen's records, look here.

Regards

Jim

[per ardua per mare per terram]

The Royal Navy service registers are available and searchable online. if they match the information you have (place of birth may help you) he might have served in the Royal Naval Reserve or Royal Volunteer Reserve (records for both are at Kew) and then transferred into the RN. The medal rolls for the RN, RNR & RNVR are available offline at Kew, so if you don't get an online match you could look through them and cross check. If he later admitted his correct age, I would expect it to be changed on his records, but whether the data entry people for the digitisation project picked it up is another matter! The RN registers were closed on 31/12/1928 when they transferred to card index files, so if you find his record you'll be able to verify the honeymoon story (Duke and Duchess of York AKA George VI & Queen Elizabeth, later the Queen Mum), I doubt he would get those royals mixed up. The Duke of York served, in the Navy, at Jutland and was regarded as a navy man, a battleship was even named after him!

The MN medal rolls are part of the National Archives documents online series, click on: WW2 Seamen’s Medals for the usual £3.50 download. As with all medal rolls they give no personal details, so you need to narrow it down. There are records for merchant seamen available from 1918 to after WW2 available at Kew.

[Essexboy68]

Folks

Thanks for your replies, I have already drawn a balnk with the RN online records (I know he was born in Ireland, but cannot elaborate further as I do not know), & the MN records show a Joseph Connor in the records covering 1946-2002. If he had served after 1945 would that be him? (I was told he was a master, working for an oil company, his pension(s), he possibly had an RN one too, were so large his daughter was refused a full grantwhen she went to university, which would be over 30 yrs ago now). looks like, with one or 2 other things, this will remain a mystery or will take up a considerable part of a day trip to Kew.

Thanks as always for your suggestions.

Mark