Request for information held pertaining to War pension

Ministry of Defence did not have the information requested.

William Robertson

Dear Ministry of Defence,

I am contacting you in order to trace records relating to my great grandfather and his military service between 1936-1945.

Name: John Conway
Rank: Lance Corporal
Unit: 7th Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders
Service number: 2980896
Date of service: 27th March 1936 - 11th October 1945

He also saw active service in WW1 with the 4th and 14th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders under the service number S/19646

I already have a copy of his service record which was obtained from the MOD however, I believe there may still be other records possibly held in relation to a war pension application. My great grandfather was a prisoner of war between June 1940 and April 1945. Records kept by the German forces of thei captives were captured at the end of the war and are currently held in the National Archives at Kew. A previous FOI request revealed no record in the archive however and it is my belief that he may have requested his POW records to support a pension claim.

The National Archives website states: “Cards for some service personnel may be missing as part of claims made by ex-POWs, cards were taken out of the collection and used as evidence to support the claim. In most cases, the card was placed on the claim file and not returned to this series.”

I would like to formally request that a search of the records be undertaken to locate the aforementioned documents and any others not already release to my family. My mother, Mrs Kate Robertson (maiden name Conway) is the next nearest living next of kin and I am submitting this request with her full authority.

Yours faithfully,

William Robertson

correspondence@mod.ecase.gsi.gov.uk on behalf of Defence Business Services Secrtariat,

Dear Mr Robertson,

Your request has been logged under our reference FOI2018/06203 and the
target date for response is 6 June 2018.

Yours sincerely,

DBS Secretariat

Payne, Fran E1 (DBS RES-Sec-Spt2),

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    20180523 Robertson FOI2018 06203 Clarification final Response1 OS.PDF.pdf

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 Dear Mr Robertson

 

Plse see attached the response to your recent enquiry.

 

Yours sincerely

 

DBS Secretariat Team

William Robertson

Dear Payne, Fran E1 (DBS RES-Sec-Spt2),

Thank you for your speedy response to my request.

You have requested some additional information from me in order to make further progress. I am afraid that I do not have my great grandfather’s National Insurance number. I believe that due to data protection regulations that I would be unable to obtain this information however you may be able to advise differently.

As to Army service records - I am happy to pass copies of these to your office although unsure why your cannot source these directly from the MOD. Can you please let me know how best to pass this information to you? I could photograph the records and attach them to an email of possibly scan/copy them and make hard copies which could be sent my surface mail.

Yours sincerely,

William Robertson

DBS RES-Secretariat (MULTIUSER), Ministry of Defence

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Good afternoon

 

Please find attached a response to your recent correspondence.

 

Kind Regards

 

DBS Secretariat team

 

William Robertson

Dear DBS RES-Secretariat (MULTIUSER),

Thank you for your recent reply to my ongoing enquiry. I have noted the advice you have given and will do my best to provide the information you require in actin to post that which I have previously submitted.

John Conway, born 8th November 1899 at 9 Church Place Glasgow in the district of Milton to John and Sarah Conway (maiden surname Ferrie)

Died, June 16th 1978 in Stirling Royal Infirmary. His address at the time was 26 Robertson Place, Stirling.

As I said in my previous response I have not been able to ascertain his NI number.

My reason for assuming a claim for a War Pension may have been made stems from my knowledge of John’s military service in the Second World War (you mention that some records pertaining to the First World War can now be found via the Western Front Association however, while John did serve in that war I do not believe he claimed for that service).

John was taken prisoner by the German forces on 6th June 1940 and was not released until April 1945 when he was repatriated. Given his age at time of capture (40) and information gained from ICRC records and research of POW camps I believe that John may have been hospitalised near the end of his captivity. It is this, along with the apparent absence of his POW records from the archives at Kew that leads me to believe that John may have filed a claim after his demobilisation.

I hope that this additional information will enable you to conduct a search but realise that the lack of an NI number makes this more difficult but not necessarily impossible.

Yours sincerely,

William Robertson

correspondence@mod.ecase.gsi.gov.uk on behalf of Defence Business Services Secrtariat,

Dear Mr Robertson,

Your request has been logged under our reference FOI2018/08190 and the
target date for response is 18 July 2018.

Yours sincerely,

DBS Secretariat

correspondence@mod.ecase.gsi.gov.uk on behalf of Defence Business Services Secrtariat,

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Dear Mr Robertson,

Please find attached our response to your recent enquiry.

Regards

Secretariat

Defence Business Services

William Robertson

Dear [email address] on behalf of Defence Business Services Secrtariat,

Thank you for your response and for carrying out a search of available records with the information I was able to provide. I am of course disappointed that the material I was searching for did not come to light. If I am able at some future time to locate my great grandfather’s National Insurance details I shall submit a fresh request as you suggest.

Yours sincerely,

William Robertson