WW11 period Accident Investigation

[3portdrift]

A rummage through some old family records has turned up a desk nameplate for an uncle who was a Flt Lt Engineer in the RAF during WW11. Family memories recall that he worked in the Accident Investigation Branch at some point, probably 1943-45, but possibly as late as 1955. The nameplate gives his rank/name and then says CIO -- AIS. Our best guess is that this means Chief Investigating Officer -- Accident Investigation Service - but does anyone know exactly what these acronyms mean?
Many thanks
3PD

[D120A]

I think 'AIS' stands for Aeronautical Inspection Services, which was an engineering function within the Air Ministry in WW2. So 'CIO' might be Chief Inspecting Officer, i.e. the head of quality control in an aircraft maintenance organisation.

That said, all RAF engineering officers may be called upon to sit on boards of inquiry into accidents and, when they are, they become the board member responsible for the technical investigation into the accident. Engineering officers are taught the techniques during their training, certainly to a level that enables them to 'know what they don't know' and ask for help.

Therefore a former RAF engineer may well have done one or more accident investigations without ever having actually been in a specific organisation (such as AAIB in current times) that does it full time.

[3portdrift]

D120A

Thanks for that, you have given some leads so that I can go back and ask more specific questions of those that remember said Uncle and what he did during his time in the Service.

3PD