Hello last year a bought a j12 from Belgium tuyned out to be an ex RAF bike which would have been left in France in the retreat .BSA owners club say its a 500cc h15 specialwar office twin part of 200 machines suplied to air ministry under contract 559903/36 c10(b) and 632331/37 between jan 1936 and july1937 the engine and frame numbers are RAF numbers not bsa being h15.26.26 and h15.2696 i would like to find out more about its RAF history i have been through all the RAF channels to no avail i live in hope some one out there knows the answer Please any ideas or help the bsa y13 that was on ebay recently £17200 in need of restoration was sold to a german juy (ex banker) who bought it for his son as he allready had one of his own best regards malcolm

email (option): smannix@mail.com

A banker ?
That explains a lot...

Malcolm, pre-war Air Ministry Deliveries are very diffcult to research. Prior to the Ministry of Supply taking over vehicle purchasing, they kept their own records, and as with the issue of serial numbers, these seem to have taken a very poor second place to their aircraft records which are extremely detailed. They don't seem to have retained anything.

There is also very little information as to what the BEF's Air Component and the Advanced Air Striking Force took with them to France.

My first port of call would be the Vintage Motorcycle Club to examine the BSA ledgers and then perhaps Hendon again. They may have records which are not immediately obvious but looking for references to motorcycles in Squadron and unit records would be a real needle in a haystack job.

Are their any traces of colour or markings on the machine ? ( A photo would be nice ! )