An uncle in the RAF in WW2
I wonder if anyone can help me or point me in the right direction? I am putting together a family history book for my family and have got stuck on an uncle who died in 1978. I have the barest of information: DOB, copies of birth certificate, marriage and death certificates, social history after 1948 and the information that served in the RAF in WW2.
Unfortunately no service record number - have applied for his service record with as much info as I could give them but 4-6 month backlog and not sure they will even accept it without service number. I have trawled Forces War Records, Ancestry, Find my Past and Fold3 and failed to come up with relevant military information.
I know that he was recruited at Padgate and have a photo possibly of his Passing out Parade marked 'February 1940'
I know that he was posted to Cambridge to construct 'Dummy airfields' where he met future wife
I know from the family photographs that he was posted to India and stationed for at least a year in Ceylon
Photo marked November 1944 Bombay
Photo marked June 28th 1945 183 Wing Ridgeway
Photo marked September 1945 Mount Lavinia
Photo marked September 1945 Ratamala
I have a photo of him in possibly 1944 in uniform, probably ground crew, with Corporal stripes
Is there enough information there to work out which squadron he was assigned to and then I can put together a narrative to go with the photographs? I assume from the dates that the Cambridge posting was the earlier one and have found an arial photo of crop marks of the dummy airfield on Mitchell Farm in Cottenham, Cambridge, where he met his wife, and know that there nearby airfields at Mepal and Witchford but beyond that I keep going round in circles.
My own father was in the Chindits in Burma at that time and I realise that the RAF played a critical role in supporting the Burma campaign and generally in the the Far Eastern theatre of war 1943 to 45 but again I have failed to make any progress on tracking down why he was where he was and what his role might have been. Any ideas would be very gratefully received!