Originally Posted by
John Eacott
Royal Navy officers in the 60s and 70s (& probably earlier) didn’t have ‘service numbers’. We were advised they would only be issued in times of war.
This was indeed true from at least the 1930s until 1966.
My father was commissioned in 1938, having joined BRNC Dartmouth in 1934 (age 14), and retired from the RN in 1966. His records have his name, no number. When he applied for an Australian War Veteran's Pension - it has some additional benefits to the Age Pension - the folks at Veterans' Affairs in Canberra were quite discombobulated by an ex-serviceman with
no Service Number (
). This was last year, so I guess it may be that nobody in the office had dealt with an application from a WW2 veteran before!