Cosford

RAF Station Cosford, Shropshire

Personnel trained at Cosford during the war included British trainees alongside allied and exiled forces from Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Romania and others.

Cosford hosted the No. 2 School of Technical Training, training around 70.000 of engine and airframe fitters, armourers, and radar technicians

No. 24 Group, Technical Training Command. Flight Mechanics and Flight Riggers undertook training courses at No. 2 S of TT at that time.

During World War II, Royal Air Force (RAF) ground crew personnel were categorized by Trade Groups. As a premier training base (No. 2 School of Technical Training) and logistics hub (No. 9 Maintenance Unit), RAF Cosford specifically specialized in producing and utilizing the following core technical trades:

Aircraft Maintenance & Engineering (Group I)

• Fitter II (Engines): Highly skilled technicians responsible for major overhauls, timing, and synchronization of complex aircraft engines.
• Fitter II (Airframes): Responsible for structural integrity, rigging controls, and repairing the fuselage and wings.
• Flight Mechanic (Engines / Airframes): Provided routine, frontline daily servicing, refueling, and minor repairs directly on the airfields.

Armament & Electronics (Group II)

• Armourer (Bombs): Managed the fused logistics, heavy transport, and winching of ordnance into aircraft bomb bays.
• Armourer (Guns): Handled synchronization, cleaning, clearing jams, and loading ammunition belts for defensive machine guns.
• Radar / Wireless Technician: Maintained early airborne interception radar systems and standard cockpit radio communications.
• Electrician: Maintained the internal aircraft wiring, cockpit instrumentation, and generator power systems.

Structure & Fabrication (Group III / IV)

• Fabric Worker: Patched and maintained fabric-covered aircraft surfaces and specialized glider sections.
• Metal Worker / Welder: Fabricated custom parts on-base and patched combat shrapnel damage.

Essential Support Services

• Squadron Adjutant: The highly organized senior administrative officer managing station paperwork and logistics.
• RAF Firefighter: Provided round-the-clock emergency crash rescue support, formalizing into Trade Group 9 at Cosford in December 1943.

On 3 November 1940 the group HQ relocated to the Bell Hotel in Gloucester but three months later, on 19 January 1941, it moved to Hindlip Hall, situated near Worcester. Over three and half years later it moved to RAF Credenhill, near Hereford, in October 1944, and four months later, in February 1945, it then moved to RAF Halton.

Places to search:

The Official Record is held exclusively by the UK Government.:

• Cataloged personnel files by name or service number via the National Archives Discovery Catalogue (specifically looking within the AIR 85 record series).
  
  
• For records not yet fully digitized or open to the public, you can submit an official request through the government's Request a Military Service Record portal. GOV.UK Request Records of Deceased Service Personnel.
  
  Note: 
  If you are his direct next-of-kin, the request is free.
  For other researchers, there is a standard £30 administration fee.
  The Ministry of Defence or The National Archives will pull his physical folder, digitize it, and send the complete official packet.
  Note that because of the massive volume of files currently being processed from this era, wait times can sometimes take several months to over a year.
  Request a full copy of his physical RAF Service Packet.
  
  Unit diaries: 

• Operations Record Books (ORBs): Compiled under the AIR 27 and AIR 29 series at The National Archives, these records act as the official daily diaries for RAF stations and training units. They detail what courses were running, station events, accidents, arrivals, and unit re-organizations. 
• RAF Museum Collections: While the RAF Museum does not store individual personnel service files, their archive department curates a massive collection of station photographs, training manuals, and physical artifacts related to No. 2 School of Technical Training and the historic Fulton Block.
  Exploration through the digital database via the RAF Museum Story Vault & Collections. 
• IBCC Digital Archive: The International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive features an expansive, free-to-access collection of letters, oral histories, and items tagged specifically to RAF Cosford ground crew and technical personnel.
• Wartime Memories Projects: Grassroots history databases, such as the BBC People's War Archive, host invaluable public submissions detailing what life was like for the 70,000 engine and airframe mechanics who passed through Cosford's wooden huts and massive hangars during wartime expansion. 
• Forces War Records / Commercial Sites: The entries or "index cards" you might see flagged behind paywalls on commercial genealogy sites like Forces War Records or Findmypast are typically transcribed index entries. They usually contain only basic data points (like his name, service number, and perhaps a unit or trade if transcribed from an embarkation or casualty list). They do not contain full military history. 

Links

https://www.wartimememoriesproject.com/ww2/allied/royalairforce/sqdview.php?pid=4332

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/midlands/

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/lest-we-forget/the-second-world-war-1939-1945/

https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/items/browse?tags=RAF+Cosford

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/about-us/our-history/history-of-aviation-cosford/

https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/VI/AAF-VI-19.html  (American)