MoD holding files

[Marcantilan]

Ministry of Defence holds 66,000 files in breach of 30-year rule | UK news | The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/06/ministry-of-defence-files-archive?CMP=twt_gu)

Interesting article.

Some time ago, a Polish historian told me that he was researching in the UK about the Napoleonic wars, and some files from that period are still secret and "not in the inventory". He had the idea that some surnames could be affected by the "real story".

How many secrets are in those docs?

Regards,

[E-Spy]

Tell the Guardian 'if you hand over the files that Snowden gave you....'

[Wander00]

What. you mean maybe the Duke of Wellington did not win the Battle of Waterloo........................

[gr4techie]

.... Well, the same banker loaned money to both sides of the war.

Then the banker's courier beat everyone back to London with news of Wellingtons victory. He knew 24hours before the British government did. The banker, pretended Napoleon won and that the UK was doomed and started selling stocks. Soon the stock market went into a selling frenzy. The banker waited until the price of stocks to fell to pennies, then he bought the UK for next to nothing. Nathan Rothschild had bought control of the British economy and overnight, his already vast fortune was multiplied twenty times over.
When the English leaders found out they had no choice but to give themselves over to the banker, their money was gone and they were slaves to the war debt. Since that time the English have been paying their national taxes to the private bankers (such as Rothschild?).

[dervish]

The "story" is presented as critiscism of MoD, but where is MoD to get the knowledgeable staff to assess the documents if it is being hammered by politically motivated cutbacks?

[dragartist]

Dervish is spot on.
I used to take my responsibilities as a Reviewing Officer seriously and would often note on files for equipment out of service (where the practice was to destroy the file) "Retain as historically significant" or put a suitable review date.

big problem was that file registers merged and files renumbered as formations merged making recovery of files from Swadlingcote difficult.

I know when the Pavilions at Wyton closed several staff from the RDP were assigned to archive stuff. Most just went in a big box with little indexing.

When trying to recall a file you got a whole box back to wade through.

I'm not surprised.

[Roadster280]

I'm afraid this isn't passing the "so what?" test for me.

If it would cost the MOD X million pounds to review the files and dispose of accordingly, I would rather the files spent eternity in the cabinet and the money be spent on training, morale or dare I say it, equipment.

[dervish]

Roadster

In part this requirement is imposed on MoD by other government departments. The DTI and Home Office for a start, or whatever they're called today. They dictate these things but resources are conveniently ignored.

[Roadster280]

Stuff 'em.

Change the policy, mark it TS and tell them they can't read it. That's all they need to know.

What's the point in spending millions reviewing files, when most of it will be nonsense these days. Who cares what the detailed timings were for a Royal visit, or a VIP move? These will have been at least SECRET.

If the other departments can make a case to see a specific file, then review those, and release where appropriate. Don't review all of them "just because".

Or, if the other departments insist, have them fund the review.

[Tinribs]

Some years ago and many years after I sold my No 1 uniform I was in a helicopter crash up on the Kola peninsular

After a week in Murmansk hospital intensive care a nice man from the KGB/FSB came to see me. Some fuss about being in a naughty area near a submarine base

He had a file with my photo on it, the staples were very rusty but he wouldn't let me see the phot or the files contents, it was thick

Maybe the other side kept files for long time as well, at least he could find it quickly

[Pontius Navigator]

Tin, indeed. I was searching Ancestry's WW1 Army records when I stumbled across records for my son in law's ancestors, not for WW1 but for middle 19th Century; they were in the WW1 record sets even though he had been discharged even before the turn of the century.

Fascinating reading. I think he had more time in the Army without pay than with pay. Another, from the same family branch, was recruited in September 1914 and discharged in December 1914 the charge sheet was interesting. Yet another had a slightly longer period in the Army before being discharged to the care of HMP Wandsworth.

[racedo]

The withholding of files end up with people assumming there is something to hide rather than anything else.

[racedo]

Tin, indeed. I was searching Ancestry's WW1 Army records when I stumbled across records for my son in law's ancestors, not for WW1 but for middle 19th Century; they were in the WW1 record sets even though he had been discharged even before the turn of the century.

Fascinating reading. I think he had more time in the Army without pay than with pay. Another, from the same family branch, was recruited in September 1914 and discharged in December 1914 the charge sheet was interesting. Yet another had a slightly longer period in the Army before being discharged to the care of HMP Wandsworth.

So was this before of after they married ;)
Grandkids will have something to live up to.

Must admit to liking colourful ancestors as shows they didn't follow the system and survived...............

[Alber Ratman]

Try getting the Jaguar RTS or effectiveness of the AN/ALQ119 on the aircraft. Logged in the National Archives but not released..:O

[Whenurhappy]

The tone of the original article is one of 'conspiracy'. Sadly it is one of incompetence and lack of resources. It won't be that long before the F540 (Unit Histories) of Op Granby units will available from the National Archives.

Don't get too excited. Many units (and almost all flying units) have few, if any, entries.

Some years ago I was asked to review files held in the Station S&C Registry. My precedessor had shredded hundreds of Cold-War era files on fallback procedures, hosting regional air squadrons, guarding strategic KPs and foodstocks (including a detachment to guard some elderly former Great Weston waggons configured as an emergency telephone network, post execution reference time) etc. These were/are of immense historical importance; I did, however, managed to save the Secret Stn catering plan, in part because it was written on the day I was born!.

[Pontius Navigator]

WUH, quite.

One hopes that the OpOrd authors had remembered to send one copy to F540.

Remember also those files, perhaps 200 enclosures, the front and back covers separate? Officers not getting filing done properly, clerks 'too busy' etc.

On your files, and mine, there was the underlying assumption that the HQ files would be the ones that contained everything. This of course overlooked the obvious minutiae that fleshes out the bare bones.

[Whenurhappy]

Also too - the practice of weeding out the minute sheet on the inside of the folder on the basis that this is comment, not policy. Similarly, another common practice has been the removal/erasure of marginal comments - 'marginalia' as it is known in the trade. This is critical information for researchers as it reveals how official documents were received at the time - and also to whom they were distributed and by whom they were read.

My work reviewing intelligence files from the1940s and 1950s (including Security Service and CIA material - the latter in the US National Archives) was immeasurably enrichened by the often sardonic comments senior intelligence staff had written on the edges of documents. Sadly with the introduction of electronic medja will deprive many future researchers of the goldmine of information that marginalia provides.

Like you, I have yet to find any OpO on file for COIN operations in the 1950s - probably because 'someone else' was supposed to file it!

[dervish]

Officers not getting filing done properly, clerks 'too busy' etc.


When I did my tour in MoD(PE) many years ago, they had long gotten rid of "registries" and "registry clerks" so no one was employed to do filing. I worked with one civvy project manager who never filed a thing, but kept the papers in a cabinet for 2 years. If he didn't look at them in that time, they went in the bin. Funnily enough, he worked on Jaguar avionics. :oh:

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

I can only echo what Roadster280 and dragartist said. I know it can be irritating when you are trying to find the background to a particular Store or Equipment to find;

a. The original Section had been split into other merged ones and the File Reference you have is now meaningless. In a 5 year period, Sections can be re-labelled 3 or 4 times.

b. In a previous "weeding" exercise, some records vital to you were gashed because it was niff naff and trivia to them.

c. the File is available but, to save duplication, it cross refers to Files buggered up by a. and/or b. above.

Additionally, for around the last 20 years, we've been required to only do essential tasks. Storage space has also been cut to the bone so the 2 year and 5 year retention periods were applied with a vengeance. The routine "weeding" was usually done by as far down the food chain as was possible. These CO/E1s and, more usually, CA/E2s didn't have the knowledge (or sometimes the wit) to know the important from the bulk of not important. Passing it up the line for a decision wasn't always effective because the poor sod up the line had a shed load of "real" work to keep moving. Even some of those up the line wouldn't have recognised historical importance if it had bit them in the bum. I remember one of my EO/Ds changed an entire Naval Stores Class Group (DSN) without realising the historical significance of the one he'd changed it from. Anyway, those files that made it to Hayes were so hacked around and cross referenced that they would have been practically useless to anyone looking at them now.

PS

I started writing this at 0715Z

[Pontius Navigator]

GBZ, on file renumbering, two things.

Our 'new' sqn cdr want me to re-organise the filing system. I argued (successfully) that our very long serving and hugely dependable Sgt Adjt could be relied upon to retrieve any document from any file given only the vaguest reference. To re-organise might have streamlined the system but totally destroy the document retrieval system :)

The other, when I took over a TS registry was very interesting too. The pair of us, HO/TO did a meticulous page by page, document by document check of everything in the vault. Everything apart from a large metal stationery box, a box very similar to an ammunition box.

Whenever I asked about it he said don't worry, it isn't on charge.

After he left and I settled in to a routine cleaning, polishing, and generally sorting out the job, I opened Pandora's box.

Now this was 1967 and Operation Vantage was only 6 years previous. In the box was the operation order, duly copy numbered, and a couple of draft operation orders. I still remember the reference, WIT/TS7, from the days when the classification was in the reference. The operation order pertained to potential Valiant operations in support of the operation.

I rang my opposite number at Wittering and the answer was a lemon. They had no trace of the file reference in their system and used a wholly different numbering system.

As a very junior flt lt I did the only sensible thing at the time, as agreed by the chap at Wittering, and shredded them :) Shame really.

[Jimlad1]

WUH

Fascinating post ref the station files - do you mind my asking which station - I'm doing some research on this sort of thing based on national archives work and this sounds fascinating.

Cheers

[Pontius Navigator]

JJ, I would guess any station. It is simply a case that no one really wants to get a grip.

The FI F540s were mentioned, GW1 F540 will be even less illuminating. One GR1 Sqn wrote "Too busy on operations to write anything." This was the operational record book!

On an operation 50 years ago I was responsible for writing the Det F540. Only snag was, no one told me! AFAIK nothing was written and many sources, Wynn excepted, even suggested we had never gone!

[Whenurhappy]

ImLad - check your PMs.

[Roland Pulfrew]

My work reviewing intelligence files from the1940s and 1950s (including Security Service and CIA material - the latter in the US National Archives) was immeasurably enrichened by the often sardonic comments senior intelligence staff had written on the edges of documents. Sadly with the introduction of electronic medja will deprive many future researchers of the goldmine of information that marginalia provides.


WUH - Completely agree. When doing some research in the National Archive a few years back I happened across one formerly Secret document sent from, IIRC, one Captain John Glubb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bagot_Glubb). On the back of the secret letter was a handwritten note exchanging pleasantries, some other no doubt classified observations and asking if the recipient fancied meeting for a game of polo. This small snap shot of a long past time will be lost to future historians and it will get even worse with e-filing!

Does anyone really know how to save a document nowadays? So that you can find it whenever you, or your successor(s), need to refer to it? Before or after the latest fad on how a document is supposed to be named and saved? And depending on whether it was saved on CHotS, or JOCS, or DII or DII/F or.....? Bring back the paper file for document archive!! :(

[BEagle]

Some years ago, a chum who shall remain nameless, but might be known to some as 'Snake', was on a tour at the MoD. One day he found a carelessly discarded document lying around - it was the minutes of some Air Force Board meeting....:uhoh:

What matters of high policy, he wondered, had these worthies been discussing? Surely something of huge national interest?

Err, no. They'd wasted most of a day bickering about the policy for the wearing of 'Sqn cummerbunds' with No. 5 dress at Dining-In Nights.....:\ Which everyone ignored anyway....:ok:

Amazing what over classification used to go on. Shortly after PhanDet was established at RAF Stanley, we started getting classified IntReps sent to all F-4 squadrons. I wonder whether sufficient time has now passed for me to reveal that the subject of the flooding in the RAF police dog kennels was one such classified tit-bit....:confused:

On my first sqn (No 35 Sqn), a chum recovered a number of wartime secret files which had since been downgraded. Fascinating reading - as was the F540 of the time. A great shame if people haven't had time to maintain their F540s in current times....:mad:

[Whenurhappy]

I recently read the minutes of a meeting of the JIC in early 1952, just after Gen Templer was appointed High Commissioner and Director Operations in Malaya. A couple of Colonial Office mandarins comented on the minute sheet about the inappropriateness of another old war horse being sent to the East, but accepted it as a fait acompli. Of course Gerald Templer was much cleverer and had persuaded the same Mandarins that he should take over control of all intelligence activities; they beieved this be be a short term expediency - but he made it permanent. Now without marginalia or minute sheets, this rather delightful exchange (written in best Public School-boy English) would ahve been lost forever.

Interestingly, in the same minutes, Dick White of MI5 opposed the appointment of a leading socialist academic (not Milleban Snr) to be Director of Intelligence, on the grounds that the candidate's university vacations varied from the Civil Service ones!

[Party Animal]

Roland,


Does anyone really know how to save a document nowadays? So that you can find it whenever you, or your successor(s), need to refer to it?


Easy really - you create a new subject file on the left side of your Microsoft Outlook Inbox and drag and drop all e-mails with attachments into the relevant file folder. If anyone asks you a question, you can access your own file/folder network to answer it. If you are not there, no-one will answer the question as none of your colleagues will have the same access as yourself!

For standalone documents, you save them in the 'My Documents' folder found on your desktop. Same result as above!

On posting, you delete all of the above as you will no longer care and your successor will start from scratch. Of course, corporate history and knowledge is limited to one person for a period of 2 or 3 years but as the rate of change of organisation is probably on a 12 month basis, no-one will care or even remember the name of the post you used to fill when you started. The other bonus is that you will be far more productive by not having to wade through 15 pages of questions trying to save stuff to Meridio! :ok:

[dervish]

Part Animal

I suspect you are absolutely spot on. :D

[Pontius Navigator]

PA, when I retired and my unit disbanded I could see no need for the miscellany of emails that I had not previously binned. Documents that were of a temporary nature - to schools about work experience, requests for authorisation to spend 3s 4d etc were deleted.

To save any trouble for the IT department (if such existed) I ran the HDD through a wipe program. It took 36 hours but the drive appeared quite clean and I am sure, after they installed an operating system, everything would be fine :}

Some months later my previous boss, in correspondence about my annual bonus, to which I had aspirations, said there were no files on my PC - quell surprise!

[Pontius Navigator]

IIRC, I believe that policeman chappie, when he was at Strike Command declared the 'paperless office.'

Did they ever install a paperless office filing system? One where all paper correspondence is passed, unread, into a sorting, scanning, filing, shredding machine. Once scanned and filed it would then wiz electronically over the Dii/F bearers to the appropriate SME never to see the light of day again.

[Roland Pulfrew]

Shame really, but I totally agree there is no spare capacity these days for any of that. Maybe they should start a FTRS Historical Branch?

What? You mean like this (http://www.raf.mod.uk/ahb/)???

PA

I am sure your description of how to store e-mails and documents is entirely correct, and therein lies the rub. If you make it overly complex to store stuff, whilst also removing the registries and their staff (whose knowledge and experience was second to none) as a "savings" measure, then you should not be surprised if people find a way round things. The illogicality of Meridio and MOSS means people do not use it. The search engine will find a plethora of documents that you have to open, check and close again whilst trying to find the document you are looking for, makes it an impractical system. Just try a Google search for anything and see how many "hits" you get. A station/unit file structure at least had an element of logic to it and flicking through a paper file was soooo much easier than doing it electronically. :hmm:

[Sandy Parts]

Roland - if, as I suspect, your link was to the DII Intranet site for the AHB, that was who I tried to contact many moons ago. After tracing 'them' (via dead-links to previous addresses and units), I eventually found one poor overworked guy who seemed to be the AHB in its entirety! Hence my tongue in cheek remark about FTRS (which I'm guessing the guy I spoke to was anyway). Maybe the solution is to state that the MoD archives/records are in fact 'Government' property (which I guess they are in fact) - therefore pass the whole lot over to the civil service to administer and deal with. If the head of the civil service then decides to 'contract it out' - so be it - let those who use the records pay a small fee for the privilege and make it a self-financing process?

[Roland Pulfrew]

SP

Not the intranet but internet link AFAIK. AHB are a small team but they have responsibility for lots of classified, all of the F540s as an example. Not sure how many moons ago you are talking about, but AHB have been a Northolt for quite a few moons now; they are well worth a visit if you are passing. They have their own library, have some dedicated researchers and are also the custodians of all unit badges that are no longer in use/issued (which is quite a fascinating collection/history in itself).

[Pontius Navigator]

are also the custodians of all unit badges that are no longer in use/issued (which is quite a fascinating collection/history in itself).

Indeed when we closed that was one item, amongst others, that they asked for. Sadly the original signed copy had gone walk about probably after a unit move. And I think I know who had it.