The problem in identifying the mysterious "Sgt McLeod" (apart from the stunning lack of paperwork) is that Dan has apparently come up with some information that F/Lt Stanley John Kemp McLeod was with No. 72 Sqn and captured near Cassino. (Post #9). There is no confirmation that this is the same man. Would a man flying as 2nd Pilot in a Whitley in early 1943 be flying Spitfires in Italy a year to 18 months later?
Thank you gentlemen for your relevant answers. In which squadron ORB No.? I can buy to track down Sergeant Stanley McLeod. It is also amazing that we do not find its trace in the list of POWs.
I looked in my archives and I own the ORB of 295-296-297-298. In the ORB of 296 I do not find Sergeant McLeod. In the 295 I find on August 4, 1942 the arrival to the 295 of sergeants: Erasmus, Watkins, Poynter, Macleod, Gaydon, Snell. I find the name of Sergeant Erasmus as captain in a crew of Whitley. Then in the rest of the ORB I can not find any of the six names.
The No. 295 sqdn was formed on August 3, it is given flight training. But for the six names, not nothing. There is this Sgt Macleod and not Mcleod. There are other officers arriving from 296, 297. 13 OTU. 42 OTU. I also found mutations from 614 Sqdn, I bought the ORB and Nothing.
Sorry for the poor quality image, taken with phone. Unfortunately i do not have the 298sqdn ORB to hand at this time.
Just so I wanted to ask the same question the meaning of 961. Sergeant McLeod had to arrive directly from an OTU and placed in this crew of February 20, 1943. No POW file, strange. There are not in the RAF Enlistment Records as for the Americans with the NARA to identify this man.
You are tilting at windmills. He is in the PoW list and there is an RAF Enlistment record online in the National Archives. You need to look at what you know and discount what you have guessed. AIR 78 has the card index to all RAF OR enlistments from 1918 to the 1970s. AIR 78/108 is the free to download file that all Stanley McLeod are listed in. There are only a few with Stanley as an only first name and as a first name combination. The ORB gives his "last three" a common way to define an actual OR service man. In this case 961 is not a match to any Stanley. I transcribed the RAF pow records several years ago into a searchable index. What is not explained by other online sources is that they are a snapshot up to circa March 1944 and do not include escapers/repatriations etc. detail here Air Force POWs Now if you go to the M index page you will see D C McLeod RAFCommands This is your man. You can find confirmation of service number and full names in AIR78/108. Ross
Memories of bygone years. Regarding the reference to the 3 digit number......that would be the "last three" of an airman's service number.....a little bit of shorthand and also to distinguish him from others of the same surname.The full service number would be used in formal documentation such as service records,formal reports and on a station,say SSOs....Station Standing Orders where any reference to a serviceman would carry the full service number. If you look at a formal squadron ORB laid out for an operation,showing all the crews being put up,there will be examples of the "last three" being recorded where aircrew have the same surnames. As an aside ......Pay....commissioned airmen would have their pay paid monthly into a bank account. ORs would be paid weekly in cash at a designated Pay Parade, say for groundcrew,those on a technical training course,squadron non commissioned aircrew as the case might be, presided over by a commissioned officer and NCO with the pay clerk The presiding NCO would call an airman by his surname,the airman would reply."Sir xxx" adding the last three digits of the airman's service number,proceed to the cash table.....salute the presiding officer and be paid by the pay clerk (no pay slip incidentally),salute and withdraw.If there were payees with the same surname,an airmen would have to wait until his last three was acknowledged.It happened to me when on technical training and I realised that an airman with the same surname as me and on another course was always paid out before me.From then on,I only answered the second call.
Harry, My lifelong sympathy was given to Alfred Ambrose Henry Bond. (AIR78/18) On entry to the RAF he was given the service number of 2264007 I wonder if the records clerk understood the impact of last name and last three he was issuing Ross
Yes Ross, Once given a service number.it became part of one's being....remembered forever. Airman Bond had his "last three"long before the prominence of Ian Fleming's......had a Great Grandmother with the name of Bond with a Christian name which later featured in a TV series...I remember her in late age having the agility of a scrum half...she outlived her first born.
Thank you Ross for finding a way through, I'm a friend and co-worker with Dan, my "mission" is to try to trace the living relatives of the crew to hopefully obtain photographs for the website. I'm in contact with relatives of WINTER, SPITTAL, HODGSON and GIBBS and so far we have a photo of WINTER, with a lot of relatives searching in attics for the other 3. MCLEOD was the hard one, as, without a DoB or address is hard to start a genealogical search for a fairly common name, especially in Scotland. I had wondered how we actually knew for sure that STANLEY MCLEOD was on the plane, I have only seen SPITTALS MI9 report confirm his presence as SGT M'LEOD. I assume not being Bomber command there is no aircraft loss report for this plane, and with no clear ORB entries, and a 2nd pilot hastily despatched upon arrival from somewhere else. Are we really confident of either his first or second name. M'CLEOD could be spelt a number of ways ? Thank you Ross, you have shown a way through this mystery and I will order a copy of D C McLEOD's POW questionnaire ASAP, from which I hope to trace living relatives who might have a photo and some additional information. many thanks Jonathan
Thank you all for having managed to identify our man and so I found good information in your messages on the airmen service number.
So I now have the POW Questionnaire and our man is W/O Douglas Carmichael Mcleod 297 Squadron captured 21/2/43 held in Stalag 344 He was born in 1918 , home address Upminster. Essex. I can find a death registration from 1963 which could most likely be him. He appears to have married in 1949, Romford, but I cannot find any registration of births with his and his wife's maiden name. I'll search the Scottish indexes, given that combination of names Thanks again Ross for the pointers. At some point Douglas got transcribed as Stanley, or given his short time with 297 it could have been a simple mistake by the pilot. Maybe it was a nickname ? The mystery continues
Added: He was born in Partick in 1918. His widow remarried: NAME: Jeanne M McLeod SPOUSE: Peter W Dvon MARRIAGE: Dec 1969 - Chelmsford, Essex
Many thanks harkness for the Partick information. Is it possible to discover his mothers maiden name and hence establish if there are any siblings ? I did see the likely marriage of his Widow. Dvon is quite a unusual name and thus far not found anything on him either, I wondered if it could be a transcription error when the marriage was registered ?
I can't see a Chelmsford marriage in 1969 but there is a Jeanne M. McLeod marrying a Horace H. Hunt at Basingstoke in the Dec 1965 Qtr.
England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005 Name: Jeanne M McLeod Date of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec 1969 Registration district: Chelmsford Inferred County: Essex Spouse: Peter W Dvon Volume Number: 4a Page Number: 1119 TD A copy would help explain his surname - it is probably a misspelling but there are Dvon's registered on Ancestry
You can purchase a copy of his 1918 birth certificate via Scotlandspeople website, reference 644/22 1699 for £12. Or you could wait until January 2019 and view his birth register entry on line for 6 credits (£7.50 for 30 credits). 100 year rule will allow the release of 1918 details on line next year. You will get the mothers maiden name, but as for finding siblings, you'll have to hope you can find the parents marriage and that any siblings have some very obvious familial influenced names, as there are a lot of McLeod born, even restricting birth search range to 1916 to 1920.