passport

[Mohammed Salikur Rahman]

Can any one kindly light his knowledge which is about carring the British passport by the serving seaman, who were fully involved in the service in 1939-1945 and working foreign bound ship from U.K. main land. Was it mandotary by law to carry passport ?

What is the significiant if a seaman's N.I. start with OS------ (Does it mean those personnel were in the Oridinace service)
Many regards to all.

[Tony Morcom]

Welcome to the site Mohammed An interesting question to which I am sure you will soon get a qualified reply. It is to be hoped you enjoy the content here which is as varied as the members. (I have taken the liberty of moving your post to a more appropriate forum)

[Ivan Cloherty]

Mohammed, few seamen if any would have a passport in the 30's 40's and 50's as we all had to have a "Seamans Identity Card" with our photograph and fingerprints on it. This served as our passport if travelling abroad to join a ship, but we did not travel to far flung places to join ships in those days, except in War time when crews travelled as passengers on liners (and cargo ships ) to join ships being built in USA and Canada.

[robpage]

There is a good article at National Insurance number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia explaining the digits and prefixes as well as the last letter / space , OS has no specific significance

[Tony Geeves]

Mohammed, we used to fly to, and from places world wide and just needed a seamans discharge book in place of a passport. Then in the eighties we also needed a Red Seamans Identity Book as well as discharge book. Regards, T.G.