Sources of information

Since no single definitive list exists for the villagers who served in World War Two we have had to piece the information together from many sources. No single source provides all the details and each source is not relevant for every man. In addition, many of the sources of information that we can make use of for Great War soldiers, for example medal rolls etc, have not yet been made publicly available through The National Archives.

The sources used include:

• The 1939 Registration - this provides a complete listing of the whole country and allows us to identify some family groups. This listing also gives information about civil defence roles that people were undertaking at the time of the registration. This has formed the main basis of the Civil Defence List on the "List of Sevice of All Parishoners" page.
• The 1945 and 1946 electoral rolls. The electoral rolls for Collingham and Linton in 1945 and 1946 contain sections entitled "Service Lists" which provide the names and addresses of those men and women from the villages who were serving. Unfortunately these lists do not give any details of the service, including whether service was with the Army, Navy or Air Force.
• The Commonwealth War Grave Commission - for those servicemen who died, the Commonwealth War graves Commission web site (www.cwgc.org) has a database which includes the name, rank and regiment of each man, along with details of where he is buried or commemorated.
• The Collingham Parish magazine - this provides useful information, particularly of men who were killed in the war and sometimes mentions their units. Later in the War, and after the war, information is generally more limited but some detailed obituaries do provide useful information.
• An illustrated Roll of Honour for Linton provides names and photographs of 27 men who served.
• The Wetherby News - Local papers provide a wealth of information usually along the same lines as can be found in the Parish Magazine.
• Parish records - servicemen and women who married in Collingham church, or who had babies christened in the church may have provided their service details on the parish records, allowing us to identify their service.
• Second World War: War diaries from a number of classes in TNA - Once a serviceman's regiment has been identified from the previous sources a picture of the day-to-day activities of the soldier can be gained from the daily war diaries kept by every unit of the Army.
• Night raid reports and combat reports of Bomber Command. These reports, held at The National Archives, provide much detail of the bomber raids and particularly useful are the route maps of the raids.
• Log books of HM Ships held by The National Archives provides details of the exact position and route of warships, but do not provide personal details of crew.
• The Bomber Command War Diaries by Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt (Midland Publishing) has been invaluable in describing the various RAF Bomber Command raids, and the volumes of Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War by W R Chorley (Midland Counties Publications) for each of the years 1940 to 1945 has been used to provide details of RAF crew members and their fates when Bomber Command Aircraft were lost.
• Individual service records. Unlike the First World War records, the personal files of service men from World War 2 are currently (June 2022) still held by the Ministry of Defence and are not generally available. An exception is made for those service personnel who died in service, and we have obtained copies of some of those records. Where available these provide full details of the dates of posting to units that can be decoded to provide great detail of the service record.
• Newspapers. We have made great use of newspaper records of the time. Some we have accessed through The British Library Newspaper Archive at Boston Spa, while the growing digitisation of newspapers has greatly aided with our research and the on-line indices and record availability at both findmypast.com and newspapers.com have been invaluable.