Missing Durham Home Guard record

[Jomot]

Pte James Morgan of the Durham Home Guard died on 22 Mar 1943 and is buried with his parents at Durham Road Cemetery, Stockton on Tees.

Records for the Durham Home Guard are available to download from TNA - series WO 409 - but for some reason James' record is not there.  The Research Guide for that series says that all records have been made available, so I cannot understand why he is not listed.  Any ideas?

His Unit is listed as 117 (102 Co of Durham) A.A. "Z" Bty, which I believe refers to the Anti-Aircraft 'Rocket' Battery.   

[MaxD]

117 Anti Aircraft Z Battery was a Royal Artillery unit in UK Home Forces Anti Aircraft Command.  Some of the detachment later in the war were indeed Home Guard (and ATS sometimes).

The National Archives Home Guard records are by battalion so the task is to find which battalion 102 Company belonged to.  Need to do this to check out the James Morgans that do come up but with only battalions against their names.  As a starter, do any of the HQ locations on this link
http://www.home-guard.org.uk/hg/cty-durham.html fit James Morgan?

MaxD

[Jomot]

Hi Max, I was hoping you'd come along 

James was born & died in Stockton on Tees, so the obvious one from the list would be 19th Durham (Stockton-on-Tees) Bn. 

[MaxD]

Date of birth? 

MaxD

[Jomot]

I don't have his exact date of birth unfortunately, but it was the December quarter of 1917.

[Jomot]

Sorry, my mistake - born 26 Nov 1917

[MaxD]

Gloom (hopefully temporary).  Cross checked, no  James Morgan with a 1917 dob but you knew that anyway!

The NA guidance is a mite unclear.  It suggests that record for men with a dob less than 100 years ago (that would apply) can be found but are closed.  May I suggest contacting NA and checking that that is definitely the case and his file is not hidden for another few months.

Need to think a bit more!

MaxD

[Jomot]

Thanks Max

I've sent off for his death certificate to see if that sheds any more light on anything.  Probably not, but you never know.   Family story is that his rifle back-fired whilst on duty, although I'm not sure I entirely believe that so at least the certificate will tell me a little more about the circumstances.

[MaxD]

Worrying away at your man, I looked again at the title of his unit.  I had (southerner that I am) been reading 102 Co of Durham as 102 Company.  A light has clicked on in the furthest recesses of my brain and I now realise that it actually is (as I'm sure you know) 102 County of Durham.

So 102 what.  I see there was a 102 Battalion Durham Home Guard, not listed on the link I looked at earlier.

What do you know, put 102 Battalion, Durham Home Guard and Morgan in the NA search engine and you get a number of hits, among them this closed record http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/b0391e4b88fc4ee8907845212431f1d7
(there is also a James Morgan but with a 1925 dob)

So, today's proposal, hit the "Request a search of closed records" and see what happens.

MaxD