Does early war grid references point to letters of place names in the map?

• by jiipee

  26th Oct 1914: ”24th Battery registered infantry trenches at the R and underneath Q of WEZ MACQUART also 300 yds North East of the S of RUE-DU-BOIS” (capital S underlined)

  No (real) grid was used in early war to guide artillery fire?

  cheers,

  jiipee

  Posted January 25, 2017 11:27 AM

• by ral104 moderator, scientist

  They're using the printed place name on the map as a reference point. So in the latter example, there's a trench at the point 300yds NE of the printed 'S' in the place name Rue-du-Bois.

  The kind of trench maps that occasionally crop up in the diaries weren't produced until early 1915. Before that, enlargements of existing French and Belgian maps were used.

  Posted January 25, 2017 12:16 PM