Q I’m researching my great aunt’s son, Harold Eyre, a pilot in 832 Naval Air Squadron, Fleet Air Arm (FAA). He was fatally injured, along with the rest of his crew WHG Browne and WF Lovell, in a crash aboard HMS Victorious on 25 February 1943. Harold and WHG Browne died the next day and WF Lovell on 28 February. I found this related document on Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk). Can you tell me what the numbers in the margin on the left-hand side mean and, if they are references to accident reports, where I might find them?
John Smith
A Given that all three casualties have the same references written against them, it seems pretty clear that they refer to the same incident – almost certainly the crash on HMS Victorious. However, the file, ADM 358/1453, that you want to see at The National Archives (TNA) at Kew, which contains a report of the deaths, has the old Royal Navy reference recorded in TNA’s catalogue Discovery – CW(C) 122/43 – so doesn’t appear to be the one referred to in your document. Other records in ADM 358 (which relates to casualties) have similar references.
When I search discovery. nationalarchives.gov.uk for CW(C) 122/43, it brings up ADM 358/1453 straight away, but when I try the same trick with the other refer
