Finding an army number

[Holymolymackerel]

Hi

My Grandad died in the 1970's before I was born. I want to find out about his service in the second world war. I have his 3 medals, they are only service medals and don't have his army number on them. It seems, to access his records I need his army number.

Does anybody have any ideas how I can find his army number and his information?

I have googled and all I can find is, it should be on the medals but it's not.

Thanks

Do you know anything about what regiment he served with etc?

The Imperial War Museum has some info on how to trace people. Also his medals might give an idea of where he served?

Have you tried on here? search.findmypast.co.uk/search-united-kingdom-records-in-military-armed-forces-and-conflict

Don't know how useful for WW2 it will be? We've been using it at school to research soldiers from WW1.

My grandfather's army record is on Ancestry.com where I searched by name.

Rubiks-

Thank you for replying.

I don't know anything about him at all sadly.

I have his date of birth, date of death, full name and the names of the medals - africa star, Italy star and 39 to 45 star.

Do you know what regiment/corps he was in?

There will be some sort of regimental archive (possibly housed in a bigger museum or the PRO) and there will be some sort of regimental association. I'd start with them.

That's a start! There must be records somewhere.

www.researchingww2.co.uk/order-ww2-service-record/

I've found this - it looks like with the info that you have, you might well be able to get his service record as you've got birth and death date and full name plus also where roughly he served.

It's lovely that you're researching his history. I keep meaning to look up my Grandad's, he was in WW1 and WW2 - he was MUCH older than Granny!

Mm, have you tried just making an application without the army number?

Obviously they like to have it (saves so much work), but I don't think I needed an army number last time I ordered a WW2 record. I too was going on the details on a medal, as well as full name, DoB, as you have.

The fact that you know what medals he received might make him easier for MOD to identify.

www.gov.uk/guidance/request-records-of-deceased-service-personnel

If you do know regiment, that would make things a lot quicker.

But if you don't, the medals will provide MOD with a clue to where he served and therefore with whom.

Oh sorry, Rubiks is way ahead of me!

Thank you all.

I have tried all the ideas and the .gov website says I can try with just full name and date of birth.

My Dad (His son) said he never talked about the war, then he died in the early 70's. My dad was devastated and due to family problems he moved away with my mum and had very very low contact with my Grandmother who in turn died in the 90's. Sadly my dad himself died himself at a relatively young age in the noughties so the info I have is very basic.

Thanks all.

Good luck!

Based on the service medals, and what you've said, I'd steel yourself for some difficult reading. Even the bare bones that you get in a personnel file can be gutwrenching.