Air Force Lives by Phil Tomaselli

Author:Phil Tomaselli [Tomaselli, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: REF013000: REFERENCE / Genealogy & Heraldry
ISBN: eBook ISBN| 9781783378371
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-04-19T04:00:00+00:00

Researching Wilfred Beale

Records of Wilfred Beale’s military career begin with his First World War army officer’s file, WO 339/39704. It contains some details of his army career including his initial attestation papers showing he enlisted first in the Territorial Force (predecessors of the Territorial Army) for the Inns of Court OTC, with the obvious intention of becoming an officer immediately. Much of the rest of his file consists of medical sheets detailing the wounds he suffered in France from the medical boards he attended.

The War Diary for 6th Battalion the Buffs is in WO 95/1860 and this is one of the First World War War Diaries available to be downloaded from TNA’s website for a very reasonable price. The War Diary for 2nd Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment is in WO 95/4715; though at time of writing this is not available online, it is one of the War Diaries that will be going online in due course.

There is little on Tom’s MI5 service. KV 1/59, a list of MI5 staff up to 31 December 1919, basically just confirms the dates of his service and the regiment he was serving with at the time. A further sub-list in KV 1/52 gives snapshots of MI5 section staff and confirms Tom’s service with H1.

Details of his initial service with the RFC and RAF are in AIR 76/29, which are available through the Discovery section of TNA’s website. The record gives details of his service in the Middle East and, though records are supposed to cease in 1920, of his service with 605 Squadron AAF between 1934 and 1939. Details of the other 605 Squadron officers referred to in this chapter are also available in AIR 76.

When it comes to his training period in Egypt, as is so often the case when looking at RFC and RFC training squadrons, few records survive. There seems to have been a general destruction of day-today records once the Official History of the War in the Air was completed. It is possible to make some general observations on the subject based on general files of correspondence and histories, notably AIR 1/408/15/240/2 – ‘RAF: History of Training in Egypt, 1916–1918’; AIR 1/678/21/13/2085 – ‘Notes on Training, Egypt’; AIR 1/2054/204/409/12 – ‘32 Training Wing’.

Though the actual paperwork for the investigation into Tom’s final crash does not appear to survive, the accident record card is held on microfilm at the RAF Museum at Hendon and provides basic details. The museum kindly sent me a copy. Please note that there are no indexes that refer to crew members, aircraft type or location of the accident – to request a copy you will need to know the aircraft type and date of the accident.

As ever, the Flight magazine archive at http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/index.html proved invaluable in locating stories about 605 Squadron in the 1930s, occasionally providing those little personal stories that the official documents fail to capture.

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