Searching, where to start?

[West Coast]

Long talk with my Mom tonight in which she told me of a brother she had(has) and lost track of post WWII.
He left Ireland and joined the British Army and served as a paratrooper during the war based in what is now Pakistan. Post war he served in Palestine. She swears the unit was the 101 something or another. I would love to try and track him down and answer question she has had for fifty plus years about his whereabouts. Are there any good sites out there where I could start the search, military alumni organizations, etc. Never done anything like this so I am open to any suggestions from any ametuer slueths who have input.
Thanks.

[henry crun]

West Coast, I went through this exercise a while back and eventually received my long lost uncle's service record, and with help from an ex servicemans association I found out where he is buried.

The speed of your search, unless you strike lucky, could well depend on what information you have about your uncle.
Presumably you have his full name, do you have a service number ?
Any old letters your mother or other family members might have
could provide further details of location at particular dates. Any scrap of info on regiment etc will help.

If you can supply a service number you could be well on the way because your next move is to contact the UK army records office.
I cannot help you with that I am sure someone here will provide an address.

Good luck.

[YellowBelly]

Suggest you look at the following UK MOD site for the address of the British Army Records office - would appear that you could write to them for assistance:

http://www.mod.uk/aboutus/military/records/army.htm

[Ali Barber]

I suspect you need an American source rather than UK. Try a Google search using "US Army Service Records Veterans" and it will give you a few useful links. Your best source seems to be the National Records Archive but they had a major fire in 1975 that destroyed a significant part of the WW2 and early post WW2 records. I wish you luck.

Re-read the original post and didn't spot the reference to British Army, just recognised West Coast and assumed the location. Nevertheless, if you get no joy from the Brit records, try the US because 101 sounds supiciously like the 101st airborne which would be right for a para.

[West Coast]

Gents
Thanks for the leads

Ali
I thought the same thing when she said the 101 and parachute in the same sentance. She was absolutely adamant about it being the British Army however. I suppose its not beyond the realm that a large war time British Army could also have a unit with the designation of 101 in it somehow.

[Banggearo]

West Coast, don't assume that your uncle was in a parachute unit, we have specialist arms of our army who are parachute qualified to enable them to jump in with the airborne (7 RHA today spring to mind) so he could have been an engineer or a gunner etc etc. A search on google brought up at least 2 101 Regts/Battalions, you might try writing to the Parachute Regt Association who may have a list of attached units from WW2. Here is a contact, hope this helps

The Parachute Regimental Association
Regimental Headquarters
The Parachute Regiment
Flagstaff House
Napier Road
COLCHESTER
Essex CO2 7SW

Telephone: Civil: 01206 782242 / 782220
Military: 94651 2242 / 2220
Fax: 01206 782199



Email:
PRA Sec: [email protected]
Asst to PRA Sec: [email protected]


BG