Can any help with a seemingly impossible task please?

[SunshineCake]

A friend of mine lost her dad in 1941 when he got left behind and was taken as a Prisoner of War. I know his name and would really love to try and find out any information for her.

Where was he left behind?

Which of the services was he in? Their archivist might be able to find something.

To be honest I know very little. They were walking and he got left behind and I think that is when he was taken prisoner. My friend was only five . I think I will have to ask her more about it but when she was talking it seemed like it was so long ago it wasn't, I don't know. Maybe I'm more interested.

Thanks though. I think I need to do more thinking about this. I do have an uncle I know more about and maybe I should try researching him first to get an idea how these things work.

You mean he was left behind in a foreign country?

That's the feeling I got and because he lost his group he was then captured.

Does she know what regiment he was in? They are usually a good source of archives.

Assuming that you are in the UK and that you have basic info, your friend can send a request to the ministry of defence for her fathers military records. I think she needs to prove that she is next of kin or ask the next of kin to request the files.

Otherwise, the files are not available until her father has been deceased for 25 years.

@Jelly4444

Assuming that you are in the UK and that you have basic info, your friend can send a request to the ministry of defence for her fathers military records. I think she needs to prove that she is next of kin or ask the next of kin to request the files.

Otherwise, the files are not available until her father has been deceased for 25 years.

Well it's been quite a few years since 1941 so the records should be available?

Should be!

It’s relatively easy if you know his regiment, I located a friends late uncle right down to his grave number in a French cemetery, no ID required.

Some of the paid sites like find my past & ancestry have some POW records from various countries.

A relative of DH was a POW.

Ancestry and Findmypast have lists of POW so you can find out where he ended up.

I managed to find which POW camp it was and found online someone had done a lot of research into what life was like there.

I also found the town it was in had a local archive and were sending mug shots taken on admission if you knew a POW number in return for the name of the person so they could build their own research.

I know there is currently a project by the national archives that is ongoing to digitalise the records of POWs that they hold. This is still in progress so its not possible to order yet.

You need to know a name, age and preferably have an idea of what regiment they served in.

So its very possible to find out things but you are more likely to find generalised information rather than information specific to an individual - certainly at the moment - as records aren't yet fully open to the public (in part because some individuals may still be alive so records tend to remain closed until thats not possible or have limited access provided you can provide proof of death / potentially information about your next of kin status in certain situations if you go down the MOD route which is even more difficult)