AI technology offers families a glimpse of Norfolk’s real Masters of the Air

New technology using artificial intelligence is set to make it easier for people to discover the experiences of their ancestors during the Second World War

The Apple TV+ series Masters of the Air features the exploits of the 100th Bomb Group – also known as the Bloody Hundredth because of their heavy losses – who were stationed at Thorpe Abbotts.

Its success prompted Norfolk Record Office to work with Microsoft to roll-out a trial system to help the descendants of thousands of USAAF servicemen learn more about their relatives’ service record.

The record office holds hundreds of thousands of historical documents, including approximately 30,000 documents and images related to the USAAF Second Air Division.

Though the vast amounts of documents at the office have been available online for some time via the Second Air Division Digital Archive, the scale of the collection made effective tagging and sorting of the archive a daunting task.

AI technology has been used to extract individual names from the documents, creating a cataloguing system that will allow users to look up the name of a single serviceman and immediately be given access to all the documents in which that name appears.

Already more than 10,000 names have been identified and are browsable on the Norfolk Record Office’s website.

Steve Neufville, senior account executive at Microsoft UK, said “The emergence of generative AI has enabled the transformation of many industries, however, I cannot think of a more powerful example of the potential of this technology than enabling families and visitors to learn the stories of those who served and gave so much during the Second World War.

“We are delighted to be working with Norfolk County Council to make these stories accessible to all.”

The sorting and cataloguing is being done with Microsoft’s Azure Machine Learning tools, utilising the potential of AI to sort through the documents and carry out work that would otherwise take years of staff time.

Margaret Dewsbury, Norfolk County Council’s cabinet member for communities and partnerships, said: “It is wonderful to be offering even more access to these important archives at a time when, with the launch of the new Masters of the Air television series, there is huge interest in the Americans serving in Norfolk during the Second World War.

“By connecting with family members from the past, people can form a deeply personal bond with Norfolk’s links to the United States.”