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Researching the Second World War

The Second World War had a huge impact on Somerset and its people. This guide gives advice of the sources available at the Somerset Heritage Centre and sources held elsewhere, which can be used to research the Second World War, the people who served and the impact the war had on the county.

Before starting your research there are some words of caution. Due to fears of espionage, information was not shared as widely as it was during the First World War, and national campaigns such as ‘Walls Have Ears’ and ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ enforced this. Many official and centralised records which relate to Somerset may be found elsewhere such as The National Archives. Records relating to persons involved in the conflict from service records to evacuees may be subject to Data Protection considerations as the individuals may still be alive, these records are marked with a * in this guide.

Service Personnel: Where to Start? 

Many people interested in researching the Second World War want to trace the experiences of an individual person – a relative or perhaps a name on a local war memorial.

There are a number of ways to begin your research:

  • Check for any papers held in the family, such as photographs, documents, medals, letters and diaries. These may help determine in which force and unit a person served with, together with other information such as rank or service number
  • Ask relatives for any information they may have relating to the person you are researching. They might be able to remember when or where an individual served, or with which regiment or service.
  • The electoral registers for 1945 (ref. Q/RER) contain sections for civilian and service electors, with the service register section listing voters who are away from home (both male and female) with indications as to type of service. They, however, do not indicate the regiment, unit or force this service is with. No electoral registers were compiled between 1939 and 1944.
  • If an individual died during service, they are likely to be listed on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database. This resource can reveal important information such as the unit a person served with, date of death, age, service number and details of next of kin.

Service Personnel: The records

  • Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force service records for persons with a birth date prior to 1939 have until recently been held by the Ministry of Defence and are now being transferred to The National Archives. See The National Archives web page on the ‘Ministry of Defence service records project’ for more details and advice on how to access the records.
  • Merchant Navy service records and medal rolls are held at The National Archives or at Southampton City Archives, and many are available to view online via Find my Past and Ancestry. See The National Archives research guide on ‘Merchant Navy seamen in service since 1918’ for details on the records and how to access them.

The County Regiments: What do we hold?

The Somerset Heritage Centre holds the archives of the county regiments. Although these collections do not hold individual service records, they can help to set a soldier’s service in context, and provide details on what actions they may have been involved in. They are a valuable source for anyone researching soldiers who served in the Somerset Light Infantry (ref. DD/SLI) or the North Somerset (ref. DD/NSY). Below is a list of the key records in the collections.

  • Battalion war diaries are official records of a unit on active service that were compiled during the war. They provide a daily account of a unit’s actions and movements. The amount of information contained within war diaries varies considerably. War diaries sometimes mention officers, but rarely name soldiers from the ranks. We hold war diaries for the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Somerset Light Infantry (ref. DD/SLI/2), and war diaries for all Battalions and other operational records are held at The National Archives.
  • Photographs, scrapbooks, letters and individual diaries are also contained within the collections.
  • Published histories are another useful source. The History of the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s) 1919-1945 by George Molesworth provides a good overview of the actions of the Regiment. For studies of the 4th and 7th Battalions who served with the Wessex Division key published sources are The 43rd Wessex Division at War 1944-1945 by H Essame and The fighting Wessex Wyverns: from Normandy to Bremerhaven with the 43rd (Wessex) Division by Patrick Delaforce.
  • Newspapers do occasionally include death announcements and obituaries for serving soldiers, but they do not contain complete casualty lists for the area.
  • School records for large grammar schools and independent schools can contain in-depth information about Second World War service personnel, including details on ‘Old Boys’ who served.

Service at home

  • Service records and enrolment forms for persons who served with the Home Guard (also known as the Local Defence Volunteers) have recently been transferred by the Ministry of Defence to The National Archives. See The National Archives web page on the ‘Ministry of Defence service records project’ for more details and advice on how to access the records, along with their research guide ‘Home Guard personnel’ for details on other records which they hold.
  • Some records relating to the Home Guard in Somerset are held at the Somerset Heritage Centre, and these records include photographs, reminiscences and written histories. Search our online catalogue for ‘Home Guard’, or if you know the name of the division they served with, search for that, for example ‘Yeovil Home Guard’.
  • Women’s Land Army service records have not survived, but The National Archives hold microfilm copies of alphabetical index cards which contain some basic information on the women who served, and these can be viewed online via Ancestry. See The National Archives research guide on the ‘Women’s Land Army for full details on the records they hold.
  • Photographs, oral histories and reminiscences of the Women’s Land Army are included in our collections, search our online catalogue for ‘land army’.
  • Records of persons who served with the Air Raid Precautions Committees (ARP) in Somerset are part of the Somerset County Council collection (ref. C/CD/1/5) and include index cards*, lists of appointments and recommendations for medals. Also included within our collections are photographs, ARP planning documents, public information leaflets and area reports. Search our online catalogue for ‘ARP’ or ‘Air Raid Precautions’.
  • Few records of the Police War Reserve personnel survive in our collections. We do hold a discipline book, 1941-1944* and a return from 1942*. Search our online catalogue for ‘Police war’.

War occurrences in Somerset

Records of the county’s civil defence can be found in the Somerset County Council collection (ref. C/CD) and these records include:

  • Minutes of the Air Raid Precautions Committee (later the Emergency Committee) and the County Invasion Committee (ref. C/CD/1/1).
  •  ARP reports, records of operations, daily summaries and diaries of incidents and registers of messages (ref. C/CD/1/2 and C/CD/2).
  • Registers of war damage to Council owned buildings and buildings of historic interest (ref. C/CD/1/2).
  • Air raid casualty returns (ref. C/CD/1/2).
  • Plans, lists and organisational records of the ARP in Somerset, including locations of air raid shelters (ref. C/CD/1/3).

Other records include:

  • Building control plans of repairs to war damaged buildings, most notably in Weston super Mare (ref. D/B/wsm/24).
  • Ordnance Survey maps of Weston super Mare showing the extent of war damage (ref. DD/VA.b).
  • Borough, Rural or Urban District Council records of local Air Raid Precautions Committees and actions and war damage accounts.
  • Records of the Bomb Census which records the location of bombs dropped, casualty statistics and damage, can be found at The National Archives.

Search our online catalogue for keywords such as ‘war damage’, ‘bomb damage’ or ‘air raid’.

Other forces in Somerset

Allied forces, such as the American and Canadian military served in Somerset, mainly whilst awaiting D-Day and deployment to the European mainland. We hold few records of these forces amongst our collections. Service records would be maintained by the national archives for the originating country. Search online for the relevant country and service, or the specific regiment if known.

Prisoners of War

There is no definitive record of British and Commonwealth Prisoners of War and the majority of records which have survived are at The National Archives. See their research guide on ‘British and Commonwealth prisoners of the Second World War and the Korean War’ for further details.

Again, few lists of Prisoners of War held in British hands have survived, see The National Archives research guide on ‘Prisoners of war in British hands’ for details.

Evacuees

Whilst many children were evacuated from London and other large cities during the Second World War, tracing their times as evacuees is difficult. No central register of evacuees as they left their home or arrived in the countryside was created, so you often need to know a little bit more about the child’s experience to find any further information.

  • If you know which school the child attended prior to evacuation, check records for that school as they may record where the children were sent.
  • If you know the village where a child was evacuated to, check the school admission registers* for the relevant parish school to see if they are recorded, along with the address where they were staying.
  • If the child was pre-school age check with the relevant archives for the area where the child was evacuated from to see if they hold any records.
  • If you know the name of the person they stayed with and an idea of the location search the 1939 register (on Ancestry or Find My Past) or the relevant electoral rolls (ref. Q/RER) for the name of the family they stayed with, this will then provide you with an address.
  • We hold two localised lists of evacuees as follows:

Billeting register for Bridgwater Rural District Council* (ref. D/R/bw/38/2)

Lists of children evacuated to Wincanton* (ref. D/H/yeo/22/3/1)

  • We also hold oral history recordings and reminiscences of people evacuated to Somerset as children. Search our online catalogue for ‘evacuee’, ‘evacuees’ or ‘evacuation’.

The Somerset Landscape

During the course of the conflict the landscape of Somerset changed with the building of defences, such as pillboxes or the Taunton Stop Line. Records of the built environment for Somerset (excluding Exmoor) and Bath and North East Somerset are recorded on the Somerset Historic Environment Record, those in  Exmoor on the Exmoor Historic Environment Record and for North Somerset contact the North Somerset Historic Environment Record. Sites for the whole county can be viewed on the Know Your Place interactive map website.

Photographs and illustrations of pillboxes and other defensive buildings are also included within our collections. Search our online catalogue for keywords such as ‘pillbox’ or ‘stop line’.

Researching the Second World War

For general research into life in Somerset during the Second World War we hold records such as government information leaflets, posters, photographs, histories, diaries and reminiscences, rolls of honour and research papers. Search our online catalogue for keywords like ‘World War II’, 'Second World War', ‘rationing’, ‘War measures’ for lists of relevant documents. Local newspapers contain details on events and initiatives in support of the war effort, see our newspapers research guide for lists of the papers which we hold.

Online resources

Many of the sources listed in this guide are available online and can be found by searching under the title or keywords. Ancestry and Find My Past are both subscription genealogical websites, free access to which are provided at the Somerset Heritage Centre. The National Archives has an online catalogue, along with guides to their holdings and online records.

Access to records

Any records which contain personal information about potentially living individuals and those marked with a * in this guide are under restricted access subject to Data Protection and Freedom of Information Legislation and cannot be viewed in person at the Somerset Heritage Centre. Please see our research guide on how to apply for access. 

Further reading

Brown, Donald, (1999), Somerset v Hitler: Secret Operations in the Mendips 1939-1945 (S 940.53 BRO)

Hawkins, Mac, (1988), Somerset at War, 1939-1945 (S 940.53 HAW)

Hebditch, Felicity, (2005), Somerset in the Second World War (S 940.53 HEB)

Somerset County War Memorial Fund Committee, (1949), The Roll of Honour of the County of Somerset, 1939-1945 (S 940.467 SOM)

Smith, Sidney, (2008), The cactus and the pine: a history of the 67th General Hospital and Musgrove Military Hospital during World War II (S 362.11 SMI)

Wilson, Jeffrey, (2004), The Somerset Home Guard: A Pictorial Roll-call (S 940.53 WIL)