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UK and Ireland: Military History

General

  • The World War I Document Archive- primary documents from World War I assembled by members of the World War I Military History List (WWI-L).
  • Chris Baker's The Long, Long Trail web-site - The story of the British Army in the Great War of 1914-1918.
  • Great War Index (archived copy) - obituaries, medal citations, photographs, etc. (over 40,000 names).
  • Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom - from Wikipedia.
  • The Victoria Cross is the highestaward for gallantry that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Wikipedia lists all the recipients by name, and details all awards to date (1,355 in number as of April 2006).
  • Iain Stewart's Victoria Cross website gives information on every VC recipient who was buried in the UK or Ireland. There are 666 entries giving name, rank, force, date and place of award, date in London Gazette, dates of birth and death, burial location and the present location of the VC itself. In several cases there are also photographs of the headstones. In addition the site provides details of regimental museums holding V.C.s and several articles and news items relating to the award.
  • Marion Hebblethwaite's George Cross Database lists and provides extensive information about recipients.
  • Officers Died - a very extensive listing of British officers who were killed in various campaigns from 1808 to date.-->
  • Soldiers Memorials - a companion web-site to Officers Died, listing NCOs and Privates (archived copy).
  • The British Empire - Armed Forces - "information on the soldiers, sailors and airman who gained, maintained and then lost an empire".
  • Roll of Honour - information from war memorials in a growing number of (mainly English counties), often with photographs of the memorials and additional details, and in some cases photographs, of the men and women named.
  • The Imperial War Museum's War Memorials Register - "the comprehensive national register of UK war memorials and the names of the individuals they commemorate"
  • Finding People - links for tracing people or former colleagues in the forces, from BBC Derby.
  • FirstWorldWar.com - a very extensive resource
  • War-Memorial.co.uk is a subscription service that contains (as of July 2016) "20,000 detailed photographs of more than 1,200 memorials, commemorating over 270,000 people, with their names (and the memorial’s information about them) transcribed and indexed . . it includes a very large number of records from the Boer War of 1899-1902 and WW1 and WW2 but it also includes memorials from as early as the 17th century up to very recent conflicts such as Northern Ireland and Afghanistan".
  • British War Memorial Project - "A voluntary project to build an online International War Memorial to Service Personnel from 1914 to the present day."
  • The War Graves Photographic Project aims to "to photograph every war grave, individual memorial, MoD grave, and family memorial of serving military personnel from WWI to the present day and make these available within a searchable database."
  • Victorian Wars Forum - British Military Campaigns from 1837 to 1902
  • Martin Edwards' Indian Rebellion (Mutiny) 1857-1859 database of British deaths.
  • Official search facility for finding the will of a soldier who died while serving in the British armed forces between 1850 and 1986.
  • Details of the National Archives' First World War 100 programme "marking the centenary of the war with an extensive programme, spanning a five-year period from 2014 - 2019 . . . of digitised record releases".
  • The London Gazette records the promotion of officers and the award of medals and is fully searchable free online.
  • Asplin Military History Resources (archived copy) - "various materials and information that may be of interest to the Victorian military historian and researcher" - casualty rolls, medal rolls, and more.
  • Militia, Volunteers and Sea Fencibles - by Diana Trenchard.
  • Taking the Long Way Home - the WW-2 story of 48 survivors from Stalag VIIIB (Lamsdorf).
  • List of Auxiliary Hospitals in the UK during the First World War, from the British Red Cross
  • The International Brigade Memorial Trust have biographical information on nearly 2,400 International Brigade British and Irish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War from UK and Ireland.

Army

Navy

Air Force

  • Royal Air Force - Our History.
  • The Royal Air Forces Register of Association's listing of Useful Sources of information about the RAF
  • The RAF Museum's Department of Research and Information Services - "looks after the Museum's Archive and Library collections and makes them available to researchers".
  • Aircrew & Groundcrew Research - provides a searchable and indexed message board for researchers.
  • The Battle of Britain site includes a listing of "The Few" - "2353 young men from Great Britain and 574 from overseas, pilots and other aircrew, who are officially recognised as having taken part in the Battle of Britain".
  • The Battle of Britain Historical Society website  also includes a listing of "The Few", containing nearly 3,000 names "of all those aircrew that served with RAF Fighter Command between the dates of July 10th and October 31st 1940".
  • Pilots of No. 41 Fighter Squadron RAF, 1939-1945. This (archived)site, which was provided by Steve Brew, "discusses the history of the unit, and includes biographical information on individual pilots, a search engine and a bulletin board. The collection of data and photographs have made this site a very informative and professional tribute to the men who served with 41 Squadron between 1939 and 1945".
  • The Annals of 100 Squadron (Royal Air Force) is "a record of the War activities of the Pioneer Night Bombing squadron in France during the period March 1917 to November 11th 1918 ......". The site includes listings of officers and other ranks.
  • Rob Davis provides extensive information on RAF Bomber Command 1939-1945, and offers lookups from his database or all Bomber Command aircraft and crew losses for WW2.
  • International Bomber Command Centre - Archives ("the biggest database in the world dealing with Bomber Command losses").

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