James Rush

I am trying to find out which unit my father served in during the second world war. Our family information suggested he volunteered for a commando unit in 43/44 after he had trained as a Sick Bay Attendant. When he was living he did not talk openly about his war activities but made generalised remarks. He did tell me that his Commanding Officer was Ian Flemming and he did retain his black commando knife which we still have. When we were very young and asked him how many Germans he killed with his knife he replied that he only used it for peeling mountains of spuds. I know that he served in France, and Norway, and crossed the Atlantic to Boston.

This information suggested that it could have been 30AU. I sent off for his war record but found these only gave very limited information from payment records and no information on his Unit. They do mention "Lent: SSB" in several places which appears to coincide with the period after he volunteered as a commando. His record indicates that he was a Sick Bay Attendant from start to finish.

I have looked in detail at the excellent site 30AU.co.uk and I found two Rush names in 33 unit B group, one J Rush and one R Rush; so there is a distinct possibility here. The 1945 Guildford photo of this unit, posted on the site, shows a Rush but I cannot say with any certainty that it is my father.

My question is - are records available that I could view which might confirm positively or not that it is indeed him? From my research, there are 30AU records at Kings College and also at IWM which has a private collection of Margaret's memoirs. Any help with this would be gratefully received.