War Office: Women's Services in East Africa, Nurses and Other Ranks: Service Records

WO 427

[1939-1963]

This series consists of 471 service records of nurses and other ranks (not officers), as well as some civilians, who served or were employed in a range of roles in number of different womens services as part of the British Army in East Africa during the Second World War and immediately after.

Individuals may have served in other regiments/corps during the course of their careers (details of which may be recorded on their service record), but this series contains those whose service usually ended in one of the following:

• Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS)
• East African Military Nursing Service (EAMNS)
• Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS)
• Women's Territorial Service (WTS)
• First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY)

Civilians employed within one of the above services were normally classified as follows:

• Female Civilian Employee (FCE)

The types of documents that are most commonly found within the service records comprising this series are:

• Attestation forms, which are the documents signed by the new recruit, or created upon transfer between units;
• Statement of service, which outline an individual's postings whilst in service;
• A variety of supporting correspondence.

Some pieces appear to have been organised according to surname or date of birth, however for large parts of this series there is no discernible order to the pieces.

For soldiers service records relating to selected smaller corps during the Second World War period see WO 421

For First World War soldiers documents see WO 364

For soldiers service records pre-1914 see WO 97

For soldiers service records relating to the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) see WO 420

Public Record(s)

English

471 file(s)

Open unless otherwise stated

From 2020 Ministry of Defence

Topics

Army

Nursing

Conflict

Armed Forces (General Administration)

Operations, battles and campaigns

Sex and gender

Africa

No further accruals expected.

The service records for individuals in these units were originally administered by East Africa Command and held at the Military Record Office, Nairobi. This Record Office provided a location for the administration of service (as well as other) records to a number of units recruited and/or administered in East Africa during and immediately after the Second World War.

In 1959, instructions were issued relating to records held overseas in various records offices across former United Kingdom territories. Records of locally enlisted personnel were offered for ultimate custody to the Colonial Governments concerned. Those which were not accepted, or included personnel of British origin, were transferred to record offices in the United Kingdom and, ultimately, to Ministry of Defence custody.