Mentioned in Despatches

My grandfather refused to talk about his experiences in the war but my father says that he was twice mentioned in despatches. We have no idea what this was for but would like to find out. However I have no idea where to begin with this. I know there is a thread regarding how to obtain service records but I dont know if this will include these details.

He was in the Royal engineers but that is about all we know at present.

Can anyone tell me if the UK service records will have this info and if not then where I can find out the information?

 

Have a look here:

Great Britain:

The Veterans Agency at the Ministry of Defence []Service records provides a Web page that explains how and where to request documents from service files of Army, Navy and Air Force personnel. Which is this Service records

 

Welcome, I hope someone will be able to help you with your quest

 

​

It appears that names of those MID were published in the London Gazette.

 

Hi BB,
As Jerome says you may well find his MiD listed in the Gazette, London Gazette Home Page
It's a bit of a black art searching it but if you have a service number you might just find him, though it seems far from all were listed, and any sort of citation is very unlikely. (I have terrible trouble with gazette searches but know a few chaps that seem to know how to work it.)

This would be the next step, followed by checking War Diaries:
The National Archives | The Catalogue | Research Guides
Sadly you're unlikely to find much more, there's a slim possibility if you can pin down a war Diary you might get a name-check

Have you got his medals? As an MID gains a small oak leaf pinned to the ribbon.

Good luck,
Adam.

 

Thanks guys. I've since spoken to the veterans agency who have explained that I am unlikely to find the actual citation. Oh well, not much I can do about I guess.

 

Occasionally, a copy of the despatch may be found in the archives or amongst the records of the individual.

It wasn't for anything heroic but Dad was mentioned in 21AG despatch and had a copy of it.