Talk:Frank King (British Army officer)

Gazette search results

 * by service number David Underdown (talk) 16:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's how to get the good results from the Gazette! I was getting annoyed with wading through name after name... Shimgray | talk | 18:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately because of the way the older issues have been put online, no single method is foolproof. Service number is often the easiest (though you've usually got to search by name first (though sometimes a search at The National Archives website will find an award recommendation  which would give the service number too.  However, because Optical Character Recognition is used, the number sometimes gets corrupted (eg 1->I, 0->O etc), so you really do need to search on full name, and initials + surname i.e. F. D. King in this case (including full stops and spaces - the latest entries, since 2000, don't have spaces or full-stops between initials, but since these are created electronically in the first place, there are no corruption problems).  Some very senior appointments do seem to use just first name + surname, so it can be worth checking that too - use a date range to restrict the number of results returned.  Unfortunately there's no way to exclude results - I have noticed that there was an RAF officer called Leonard Frank Douglas King, whose period of service overlapped, which is a bit annoying.  Try to find RN and RM officers is the worst though since the Admiralty doesn't list by service number, and sometimes puts first names after surname.  David Underdown (talk) 08:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Clockwork Orange
The searchs of the Times I made when looking for his obit also mentioned his name in connection with Clockwork Orange (plot), insofar as he confirmed that a British Army operation with that name had existed. Need to revisit and work this info into the article somehow. David Underdown (talk) 15:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)