Officers documents

[KILTY]

Looking at a officers service papers that state they were "weeded" in 1935 & that two documents had been "destroyed". What would have been the possible content of these documents for them to have been removed.

Kilty.

[Ivor Lee]

Kilty

I have always been led to believe that the weeding in the 1930s was carried out by Civil Servants whose primary primary concern was financial issues (pensions etc).

As a result much of what researchers would find interested in was thrown away whilst details of monies received was kept.

As an example I was looking at the file of an Australian who had risen from Private to Lt Colonel in about three years during which he had been awarded MM and DCM.

The file had detail on injuries received, time spent in hospital, medical boards and payments made to him when he left the army. But the records of the units he served in and awards had been weeded out with the exception of one page with brief (and I mean brief) details.

I will be interested to see if I am corrected in why the files were weeded.

[Terry_Reeves]

The last officers file I looked at a couple of months ago, reflects much of what Ivor has said. A mention of the date that he went overseas and the fact that he had been wounded was the only reference to his military service, apart from some general adminstrative correspondence about an application to to join the Regular Army Reserve of Officers in the 1920's. This was an officer who had won the DSO, two MC's and had been mentioned in despatches. Interestingly enough there was a slip in the file showing that it had been weeded in the 1930's.

Terry Reeves

[rflory]

I have copies of officers' papers for over 500 Royal Artillery officers and over 80% have full attestation papers and military history sheets (if formerly an other rank); applications for commissions and/or Admission to Officer Cadet Unit; Casualty Forms (lists units served with, MIDs, wounds, etc.); Protection Certificate (Officer)(Disembodiedment); Medical Reports of Wounds and many other papers of a military interest. The other 20% have been heavily weeded. Why some were weeded and many others were not, I have no idea. Regards.

R. Flory