I think I have understood very well. Birth Registers are held centrally by the GRO, indexes are free online, the only way to get full details is to buy the certificates. Army Archives would obviously have the date of birth recorded and quite probably place as well but certainly would not have the actual birth certificates. "The archivist was from the Royal Engineers, "I think he's a sergeant corporaL" there is no such rank. "Corporal" and "Sergeant" are two established rankings for NCOs in the whole army. During WW2 they did not repair planes or civilian structures - they were far too busy building Bailey Bridges, Mulberry Harbours and all the other paraphernalia needed to get the Allies to final victory over Germany. Earlier you say "... stationed in North Central London in WW2. ...After the war it was stationed in Hull until 1950. In 1954 it was in Huddersfield.". This is meaningless - there could have been a unit of the Corps in either place but the HQ of the Regiment is in Chatham and the Archives and Museum are in Gillingham which you would have had to contact had you really discussed anything with their archivist - corporal, sergeant, or the man in the moon. They would also not give so much information immediately over the phone. You would have had to put in a request and it would be dealt with as and when. When trying to help others accuracy is very important or they can go off on a wild-goose chase which is unfair