We are asked all the time if digitising the probate records can get boring at times. Sure, doing the exact thing over 1,500 times a day can tend to be boring, but depending on the material you're working with it could prove very interesting! Such was the case during October, November and early December. We digitised records from the War Years and they proved to be very interesting.
We've already shown some of the records from WWI. World War II proved to be very interesting.
If you read the record below, it's for Stanley Watkinson of the New Zealand Navy. Sub-Lieutenant Watkinson was assigned to the HMS Hood at the beginning of WWII. Those who know their war history know that the HMS Hood was considered the mightiest of the British Battle Wagons. She went up against the German Battleship "Bismarck" and after two salvos the HMS Hood was at the bottom of the sea in less than 90 seconds. Sub-Lieutenant Watkinson was the only Kiwi on the ship that day and he went down with the ship and the movie "Sink the Bismarck" was made!
In many instances the probate records included the telegrams and letters from commanding officers to the families of those killed in action. I thought long and hard about putting these on our blog and decided that these records are already available on the internet so they are no longer of a private nature so here are a few examples of what we've seen.
This is from the King and Queen of England to the father of a Kiwi killed in action. It was written on behalf of the "Keeper of the Privy Purse" who is the financial secretary for the Royal House.
This is the actual death certificate of a soldier killed in action. I find it interesting because of the nature of the soldiers death "Died as Prisoner of War".
This is extremely interesting in that it is the message home folks received if their son was missing and presumed killed in action.
Here's a copy of the actual telegram family received at home when their loved one was killed in action.
This one is a tear jerker! This soldier was captured and then escaped. His record has a personal letter to his mom detailing the events of his escape. Then, about a week later mom received this notice that her son was killed in another action...SAD for sure!
Soldiers at the last minute made their "Last Will and Testaments" only to be killed in action literally days later. Here's an example of one such will.
In many instances the probates also included letters from commanding officers expressing their condolences. We were surprized that all this information was kept in the probates and not kept by the families!
Then we hit the mother load of them all with this death record:
Notice the yellow block in the right of the record..."Killed while attempting to escape from Prisoner of War Camp." Well, I immediately took the name "Arnold George Christensen and googled it and sure enough, guess what came up????
In fact, when you do all these records of those that were killed during the war you gain an appreciation for what they did for US! They were, in most instances, 18 to 30 at the very beginning of their lives with hopes and dreams only to be killed in action defending our freedoms. We really gained an appreciation for what they sacrificed. They came from all sorts of backgrounds. The photos below are an example of about 20 different death records, all from different professions. I've highlighted their profession so that you get a feeling, like we did, for the broad backgrounds of those that gave their lives. This will end our "Digitising the War Years" posting, hope you liked it, let us know!
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