Kenneth James Jarvis RAF Records WW2

[AdrianBruce]

... If he is the Kenneth James noted in the articles concerning the St Peter's School OTC he enlisted in the 2/5th W. Yorks Regiment (army) around 1939. In 1942 he was in the RAF until at least 1945 then according to the September 1945 article described above he was RAF VR BAOR. BAOR stands for British Army of the Rhine according to a Google search.

Did he move between the services or am I looking at two different people?

I don't know...

If he moved between the Army and the RAF(VR) then I would hope that his RAF service records will say that. (So, another reason why you need those RAF records).

Why would the same guy join the 2/5th West Yorks in mid 1939 as a Second Lieutenant and then join the RAFVR as a Pilot Officer in July 1942. Both Pilot Officer and Second Lieutenant are the bottom rung of the ladder for commissioned officers. If it's the same chap then maybe he's spent 3y doing nothing much and has asked for a transfer??? I didn't see any promotion in the London Gazette for the West Yorks guy.

Or he's simply not the same guy...

(I did try to navigate the WW2 Army Lists to follow up on the West Yorks guy but I can't find the index in one...)

[VALLMO9]

I think the KJJ mentioned in the Leeds Mercury (1939) might be the same chap who served with the RAF VR.
Given this January 1916 London Gazette mention for father Arthur Stopford Jarvis:
"The London Regiment - Cadet Arthur Stopford Jarvis, from University of London Contingent, Senior Division, O.T.C., to be Second Lieutenant".

It certainly makes sense that son Kenneth followed suit with St. Peter's School Contingent, Junior Division O.T.C.
Harrogate is only 23 miles from St. Peter's School in York. As an aside, K.J. Jarvis is mentioned in a couple of St Peter's School squash championship notices (Mar 1938), which were held in Harrogate.

Hopefully the RAF service record will confirm it's the same man or not. Not sure how long the current wait is for MOD records. Their website indicates "You’ll usually get search results within a few months - it can take up to a year".

[AdrianBruce]

He is the same guy.... (Contrary to my instinct, I might add...)

See https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/iss ... ement/3448

This is the London Gazette of 4 August 1942, Supplement 35657, page 3448

Screenshot 2022-11-05 210904.jpg (14.42 KiB) Viewed 823 times

(Crown copyright I presume)

Basically, expanding a bit...

War Substantive Lieutenant KJ Jarvis (94823) relinquishes his commission 25 June 1942 on appointment to a commission in the RAFVR.

I wouldn't have found this because that "Jarvis" has not OCR'd well enough to feed the index on the London Gazette site. However - FindMyPast has a collection London Gazette 1665-2018. This is not the pages of the Gazette itself but page of the Index to the Gazette - this was manually compiled by real life humans. What it told me was that there is a Territorial Army appointment for someone called Jarvis KJ on page 3448 of the 1942 London Gazette. Unfortunately, I can't find a way to search the Gazette for a page number without knowing the issue number first... (No - searching for the page number doesn't seem to work! ) On the other hand, also on that index page was a reference to an appointment of Alken B on p.3448 - the same page. Fortunately, Alken had OCR'd and by searching on "Alken" in 1942, the requisite page 3448 of Supplement 35657 appeared with that clip. Phew!!!

(If anyone knows how to work the Oracle from just the page number, I'd be grateful because, honestly, that was a fluke)

So - to repeat the advice - Jason needs to get that set of RAF records. I'd just get those first because it's always possible that the Army records have been copied into the file of RAF records. If not, then get the Army ones later.

As for why KJJ transferred, well, Wikipedia has this

In 1942, 2/5th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment was converted to armour, becoming 113th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps. As with all infantry battalions converted in this way, they continued to wear their West Yorkshire cap badge on the black beret of the RAC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_York ... _World_War
I think that was his battalion wasn't it? Maybe what happened was that, as part of the conversion, there was a surfeit of junior officers and they actually got a choice of what to do and KJJ decided to opt for the Wide Blue Yonder instead.

[JasonB]

Thank you very much Adrian for your dogged research. Your information has really helped me in finding our more about Kenneth and I will act on this. Also thanks go to the other contributors as well.