I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that has ever shed such
light on something that I have worked on in the past. I’ve
written about plenty of men – particularly airmen – who were
lost during the Second World War – and reading about the work of
the Missing Research Enquiry Service has helped me gain a much
better understanding of the process involved in tracing missing
men during and after the war. I guess it’s one of those things
that we don’t tend to think about too much, but how did we get
from the height of the war, with thousands of men being lost in
action – many of fate unknown – to the neatly-kept Commonwealth
War Cemeteries and Memorials to the Missing of today? As the war
was ongoing, the RAF maintained a Casualty Branch that dealt
with information about men lost - either killed, taken prisoner
or missing – over enemy territory. This involved collating
intelligence – in some cases from the enemy via the Red Cross –
to maintain personnel records, and inform next of kin. Many
bereaved relatives of cou