War Diaries Talk

[IMPROVEMENT] A glossary would be useful

  • khearn by khearn

    I'm got some military experience, so I recognize many of the abbreviations and terms used (even though my experience is in teh US Army, so there is some language difference), but I still find myself running into abbreviations or terms that I'm sure are (or were) common in the British Army that I'm not familiar with. I ran into "RE" a couple of times, as in "hauling RE material" and I'm now suspecting that it means Rear Echelon, but that's a guess. I also saw that the "G.O.C Division came through", which appeared to be a person, based on context. I'm fairly certain that this is a common abbreviation, but I have no idea what it means. It would be nice if there was a list of words and abbreviations that people are likely to commonly encounter to help them make sense of what they are seeing. Even things like "We were asked for fatigues", which I understood, probably won't make sense to many people with no military experience (It means they were asked to supply men to do some sort of labor).

    Ah! I just found GOC, it's General Officer Commanding.

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  • simonedi by simonedi moderator

    RE is royal engineers i think... but yeh a glassary would help and might be on the way

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  • welshsage by welshsage

    Can be confusing for civilians. There's a WW2 glossary at http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/wwIIspec/number13.pdf

    It's got UK Translations of US phrases, but an awful lot is the same. I'm happy to field any queries anyone might have, meanwhile I'll try and hunt down a better UK Glossary.

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  • welshsage by welshsage

    Ah Ha, Same PDF address, but go to (PDF Pg #71) Titled - Section Ill. BRITISH MILITARY TERMS
    WITH U. S. EQUIVALENTS

    This entire pamphlet could almost be a handbook for this project 😃

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  • Belbelleb by Belbelleb

    Any word on the finished button not functioning? Am working around this by going to a different diary.

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  • DavidFConnor by DavidFConnor

    Glossary would be great. Including items such as abbreviations eg regiments, places, activities,

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  • khearn by khearn

    Ah yes, Royal Engineers makes sense for RE. Excellent example of the language differences between 1980s US Army and 1910s British Army. Closest thing in my experience was REMFs (Rear Echelon Mother .....). But Royal Engineer material sounds more likely that Rear Echelon material.

    Abbreviations for units would also be useful. I just had a diary where the unit relieved what looked like the "1st Herts". I have no idea what unit that means, but I suspect it's probably a commonly used abbreviation (or my mis-reading of one).

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  • lukesmith by lukesmith moderator in response to khearn's comment.

    Great suggestion. For now, please post useful links in the TIPS section:

    http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/boards/BWD000000c

    Thanks!

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  • debcam by debcam

    i simply keep a window open with Google ("other browsers are available"!) If i have problems reading a place name, or abbreviation, or slang term (eg "coal box") then i simply enter it in google. this way, you can then go back into the diary -which is open in a separate tab - without losing your page. it's been really useful for place names. Also, i am in ancestry and have entered some of the names in and found out a bit about them including twice being able to contact someone with a family tree on ancestry, to advise them that their ancestor is mentioned in the diary and what was said etc. I think it is really useful to get information out to people who could use it. i for one, as a family historian, would be delighted to get such information, so am more than happy to pass it on to a fellow historian.

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  • InThePink by InThePink

    There's a very useful list of WW1 abbreviations here at The Long Long Trail

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  • antjohn by antjohn

    Tagging a war diary page - the other units tag has disappeared. Any suggestions?

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    Well this isn't really the right thread to ask the question... but in any case the Other Unit tag is now back.

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