Whilst the On-Line version of the London Gazette is an extremely valuable resource to family historians and genealogists, trying to find an entry using the search engine is remarkably difficult. I therefore want to share some tips and tricks which I've found useful.
I have used a series of worked examples to illustrate the problems you will face, and I strongly recommend that you start at the beginning and work through all of them, rather than dipping in half-way through. Although most of the examples relate to WW1 entries, the same principles should also apply to the WW2 period.
Since computer skills vary considerably, I've tried to start off gently. More experienced computer users, who are familiar with Adobe Acrobat Reader, will make quicker progress.
For reference, I'm using a laptop running under Windows Me, have MS Internet Explorer 6 as my browser, and use Adobe Acrobat Reader 5 to view the Gazette pages. If you don't have that configuration then some procedures may well differ, and the newly-released Acrobat Reader 6 looks and behaves slightly differently from version 5.