Air Ministry: Department of the Master-General of Personnel: Officers' Service Records

Reference:
AIR 76
Title:
Air Ministry: Department of the Master-General of Personnel: Officers' Service Records
Description:

Service details for officers of the Royal Air Force (RAF), mainly for men discharged before 1920. Although the records were created from April 1918 upon the inception of the RAF they include details of earlier wartime service.

The forms are pre-printed with the references MGPRI or AM60; MGPR probably refers to the Department of the Master-General of Personnel which would have held the forms prior to its becoming the Directorate of Personnel within the Department of the Chief of Air Staff by June 1919.

NOTE: Digital copies of the Royal Air Force Officers' service records covering the First World War period can be searched and downloaded.

Date:
1918-1919
Arrangement:

The forms appear to have been taken from loose leaf ledgers and arranged alphabetically but when filmed every alternate page (the back of the form) has been photographed upside down and the film is not frame numbered.

Related Material:
As well as in the published Air Force Lists, a muster list of officers in the RAF on 1 April 1918 is held in AIR 10/232-237
Records of service for officers in the Royal Naval Air Service are contained in ADM 273
Held by:
The National Archives, Kew
Legal status:
Public Record
Language:
English
Physical description:
567 microform
Access conditions:
Available in digital format only
Publication note:
Air Force Records: A Guide for Family Historians, William Spencer (TNA 2008); Air records as sources for biography and family history (PRO Readers' Information Leaflet, 13, 1994)
Administrative / biographical background:

The RAF was the world's first independent military air arm and by the end of the First World War it had become the largest with over 27,000 officers and 250,000 other ranks as compared with 300 officers and 1700 other ranks in British air personnel at the start of the war. However, by the end of 1919 26,000 of the 27,000 officers had been discharged and it is largely their service details which are held in this series.

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