The first tranche of military service records are now available to order from The National Archives (TNA) after being transferred from the Ministry of Defence (MOD).

On 5 April, TNA confirmed that the records have been added to its online catalogue Discovery (discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk).

The records are in series WO 420 and relate to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) regiment, but only include men who were born over 115 years ago.

You can now access the records by searching for ‘WO 420’ in Discovery and browsing the records, which list each man’s surname, initial, date of birth and service number.

TNA is “currently undertaking a procurement exercise to appoint a digitisation partner”. In the meantime, to access a record you must click ‘Details’ by the man’s name and follow the instructions so you can view it at TNA’s buildings in London. The record will take four working days to prepare. To access REME records for those born more recently than 115 years ago, you can email the Access Service Team at modpersonnelaccessteam@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

British military service records after 1920 were previously held by the MOD. They are being transferred to TNA in a process that is expected to take until 2027.