Your Army Record

paul croxson · Your Army Record

This may have been raised before -if so my apologies.

For soldiers since 1921 but before 1996 and Officers since 1922 (late on parade again!) If you write to the following address in the form of a written request together with:-
Name
Rank
number
address
proof of identity such as copy driving licence and passport you can obtain a copy of your Army record. I am told that it is a slow process

ARMY PERSONNEL CENTRE, HISTORIC DISCLOSURES
MAILPOINT 400
KENTIGERN HOUSE, 65 BROWN ST
GLASGOW. G2 8EX
tel 0845 600 9663
email disc4.civsec@apc.army.mod.uk

Gordon

Useful reminder, Paul. I sent for my records a couple of years ago, and received them within six weeks. I can't say they were absorbing reading, being mainly medical and dental records. However the list of postings was quite useful in fixing dates. My memory of them over the years had got a bit hazy. There was also a photo of me, just two days into my service, holding up my army number on a stick and looking a bit shell-shocked.

Can anybody tell me what "TOS" means, as in "Joined and TOS" or "Posted and TOS"?

Was everybody "Security vetted by WO and Scotland Yard" or just the I Corps"?

Gordon

Tom Neal

Hello Gordon,
TOS means "Taken on Strength" and is normally followed by the unit name.
I do not know about everyone being vetted but all potential Spec Ops were.
Tom

paul croxson

Good evening all. briefly there are 2 types of vetting, negative and positive. I can only speak for the I Corps but certainly in the 50's when security breaches were rife positive vetting applied to all of us and took several months to come through and, until it did we were on tenterhooks and not let loose on anything classified" secret". There were lots of superannuated Officers and policemen going around checking and knocking on doors. I was scared stiff as I had been in touch with various peace movements during my callow youth and these were absolute anathema to the Military - well this is what I was told.
I would be surprised if Op Specs were not included in positive vetting as they had nearly as much access to 'secret' material as us

jr

To join the Int Corps you had to be negatively vetted (NV). ANSIs required positive vetting (PV) before starting trade training, which meant that after completing basic and clerical training you could be sitting around at Ashford waiting for the green light. This entailed joining the "Depot Squad" and being given some sort of employment until the PV came through and you could proceed to Loughborough. As I had visited the Soviet Union when at school, I had to wait around 5 months. (The Op Int trade only required NV for their trade training, although they would be PV'd later).

Trainee Spec Ops were also NV'd but at a certain stage (8 weeks?) into their training received PV. I seem to remember that those Spec Op trainees with PV wore a green band on their epaulette.

paul croxson

Does anyone know of an instance of someone failing vetting either NV or PV? I would think for the average NS the most radical thing we had done was to vote communist in the school elections. There were though a lot of graduates around then in the I Corps who might have been open to all sorts of influences!

Gordon

It is difficult to assess how much a "murky" past might have influenced the army's view of you. There could be no particular reason why you did not get the posting you wanted. But in the context of failure to be selected for the Russian course, those who had, say, a Polish mother or a Hungarian father always harboured the suspicion that their parentage had counted against them.

Gordon

paul croxson

Both my parents came from Ipswich not noted for being a hotbed of sedition or revolution as far as I am aware. There must be another deep-rooted reason. Could it be that my pimply face did not fit? No worse than Alan Bennet's I would have thought. Funny to think of him being an ace shot on a bren gun. The nearest to firing one for me was having to carry one on exercise over Ashdown Forest. I don't think, on reflection, that I fired more than 10 rounds of 303 and the usual 32/33 of 9mm rimless (is that right?) in the stun gun.
That's just reminded me "Please Corporal, my sten gun is stuck" and everyone throwing themselves to the ground as the idiot swung round, finger still on the trigger. The culprit is still probably trying to pass Basic Training.

Gordon

Paul

Weren't the peasants of Ipswich seriously implicated in Wat Tyler's rebellion of 1381? That could have counted against you.

Gordon

paul croxson

Gordon, at the risk of being pedantic (we Suffolk chaps can be somewhat) should it not have been "which" Tyler?