Ratagan Forest Workers – War Service records 1949
Very rarely retained but the following WW2 service records were found in the Fort Augustus Forest Office. They were important for calculating length of pension service as the Service Years were added to the Forestry Commission years.
Probably very seldom mentioned by the men these war records are an important part of history of the locality and certainly of the men who served a number of active years in this country’s forces. They should be remembered for their service to this country.
Please see the PDF below for five records found.
The records are for the following Forestry Commission workers:
John Morrison - Forestry Commission number NS6/9/40
John O’Kane – Forestry Commission number NS6/22/48
Donald J Morrison - Forestry Commission number NS6/11/42
Robert J Boyle - Forestry Commission number NS6/18/47
Donald C MacRae - Forestry Commission number NS6/15/46
The Forestry Commission numbers are made up of three elements - NS6 signifies North Scotland Forest Number 6 as Ratagan – the middle part is the worker sequence number engaged from the very early days of the forest - the last part is the year of first engagement into the Forestry Commission.
(Note it is likely that more workers were recruited and left the Commission in the early years of the 1920s and 30s but unless they stayed on until the 1940s their names were seldom retained in records. Consequently when the more formal worker records began the one with the very earliest start date was allocated as No 1.)
It will be seen from the above that some workers were employed by the Forestry Commission before entering the services and some joined the Forestry Commission after demob from the services.
Any comments are very welcome. Should any families wish to have a digital record please make initial contact using the comments box. Thank you.
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Groups: Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports