In the Field and wrong rank
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by
alfredadams
I am now on my second war diary that has used the term 'in the field 'instead of a place name in the Place column. I tag it as it stands, what do other people do? Also in my current diary I have officers thaat I know from the beginnng are 2nd Lieutenants but often later added in haste as Lieutenants and then later back to 2nd Lieutenants. I have classified them as it is written rather than as I know it. Is this the correct thing to do?
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by
HeatherC
moderator
There's little point in tagging "in the field" as a place since it won't appear on the geolocator. I put no tag at all when it says something like this.
As for the rank this is a tricky one. I have seen people correcting names and numbers in nominal roll lists for example. However I believe what you are doing is correct. We have to tag what we see, not what we think we know from elsewhere. Otherwise, the way the system works (taking a "best fit" from five people's tags) it will ignore the one where someone has made the correction and take the 4 where people have not. I have tried to tell this to the people who are laboriously correcting nominal rolls from some other source but I can only imagine they do not read their PMs or look back at comments added later to their tagged pages 😦
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by
f0rbe5
Ranks. I've just come across a Belgian interpreter who has been attached to the Field Ambulance I'm working on. His rank is Sub Lieutenant, which is not available in the range of options under Person/Rank. This will be a significant problem when the Royal Naval Division appears in the Diaries as they will have a full range of ranks not currently available: Sub-Lieutenant (equivalent in the modern era to Second Lieutenant), Lieutenant Commander (Major) and Commander (Lieutenant Colonel). And of course there is also Captain (RN) which equates to Colonel, not Army Captain. Is there any plan for these to be added? In the meantime, I've recorded the Belgian as "Other".
Iain
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by
David_Underdown
moderator
I think the Belgian rank is equivalent to 2nd Lieutenant (Sous-lieutenant in French - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_military_ranks). But good point about RN Division
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
That is a good point - I'm not sure it's been addressed yet. I'll have to find out...
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by
f0rbe5
I thought I'd revisit this issue about the Royal Naval Division and naval ranks.
The unit I'm currently working on, 18th Bn West Yorkshire Regt, 93rd Inf Bde, 31st Div, has been relieved by the Howe Battalion and the 1st Royal Marine Battalion, both of the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division (https://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD00042fw). Whilst there's no mention of any ranks, i think it's only a matter of (a short?) time before a naval rank or rate is listed and not available in the 'Ranks' options (I didn't include Able Seaman, Leading Hand, Petty Officer or Chief Petty Officer above). I've scratched around various pages here but cannot see that a solution has yet been offered.
The solution that was offered for the Indian Army units (comparison lists of ranks) to enable standard webpage ranks to be applied to exotic ranks is perhaps the way ahead, but it might be useful if this is in place before the problem is reached?
Sorry to appear to be harping on about this but as an ex-sailor and later, officer, this is a subject close to my heart...
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I understand what you are commenting about. For anyone interested in the Royal Naval Division here is an article concerning them.
Part of an article re Royal Naval Division:
On 16 August, Winston Churchill the First Lord of the Admiralty, decided to embody two more naval brigades with surplus men of the Naval Reserve, to join with the Marine Brigade to produce a composite Royal Naval Division. A few petty officers and ratings were transferred from the navy to provide a cadre and some officers were provided by the army but most of the recruits were reservists or men who had volunteered on the outbreak of war.
The eight battalions were named after naval commanders, Drake, Benbow, Hawke, Collingwood, Nelson, Howe, Hood and Anson, later being numbered from 1st to 8th. The division was not provided with medical, artillery or engineer units, consisting solely of lightly-equipped infantry. Many of the trained men were then reclaimed for fleet service and recruits were taken over at the request of the War Office, from oversubscribed north country regiments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/63rd_(Royal_Naval)_Division#Royal_Naval_Division
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by
cyngast
moderator
in response to f0rbe5's comment.
I think your idea about putting together a list of comparable ranks, as we did for the Indian Army units, is a good one. I've also occasionally come across battalions of the RN division mentioned in diaries, most recently in the past week with the 12th York & Lancaster Regiment.
I'll send Rob a message about this and get back to you soon. I can assure you that the RN Division diaries won't just pop up out of the blue, though. We have to decide what we want next and then ask the NA to send those diaries to Zooniverse to upload. That process takes a few days at best, and more often weeks, so we'll have plenty of warning when we get to it. Right now we have this new batch from the 31st Division to work through.
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Cynthia & Ral: List of Comparable Military ranks Royal Navy/RAF/British Army/US Army
Interesting Article - Equivalent Ranks (Rough Guide) for Royal Navy/RAF/British Army/US Army
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112133708
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
I'll have to check whether the RN division diaries are in the same collection as the others. Definitely if we get them up for tagging, a rank comparison as for the Indian Army ranks will be very useful. I'll look into it tomorrow.
I doubt, though, that we'll encounter many RN ranks in the current set of diaries, just as we rarely if ever come across Indian Army ranks. I've come across a reasonable number of mentions of RN & RM units, but never any reference to individual officers or men.
More to follow...
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Came across this article and list re Equivalent Indian Army ranks
http://www.gomilitary.in/equivalent-ranks-indian-armed-forces-army-air-force-navy/
Also includes Equivalent ranks of the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard :
http://www.gomilitary.in/equivalent-ranks-indian-armed-forces-army-air-force-navy/
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Indian Army ranks – this list was posted a long time ago.
Commissioned ranks for British officers are the same as those in the British Army
VCOs are Viceory's Commissioned Officers - Indian soldiers with officer rank, whose authority only covered Indian troops.
Risaldar-Major/Ressaidar-Major is a cavalry Major.
Subedar-Major is an infantry Major.
Risaldar/Ressaidar is a cavalry Captain.
Subedar is an infantry Captain.
Jemadar is a Lieutenant in either the infantry or the cavalry.
Company Havildar Major is a Company Sergeant Major.
Daffadar is a cavalry Sergeant.
Havildar is an infantry Sergeant.
Lance-Daffadar is a cavalry Corporal.
Naik is an infantry Corporal.
Acting Lance-Daffadar is a cavalry Lance-Corporal.
Lance-Naik is an infantry Lance-Corporal.
Sowar is a cavalry Trooper or Private.
Sepoy is an infantry Private.Posted
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by
cyngast
moderator
in response to marie.eklidvirginmedia.com's comment.
It's still stickied at the top of the Talk page.
Posted
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
It looks like we can expect at least some of the RN Division diaries to appear at some point. Given our experience with the Indian Army diaries, I'll make sure there's a rank comparison in place before then.
In the meantime, if anybody does come across any Naval ranks, do let us know and we'll work out their Army equivalents.
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Ral, here is a list of British Military Ranks and Insignia. (Army/RAF/Navy
Link: http://www.angelfire.com/mi2/angela764/military/british_ranks.html
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by
f0rbe5
Reading through the posts since my last comment, I should say that I'm not expecting to see the RN Division diaries any time soon. My comments about finding a solution now are more to do with Army units liaising with, relieving and being relieved by RN Division units and thus the potential for the occasional rank/rate to appear.
I agree with Rob that this is likely to be unusual, but surely preparation for the unusual (especially when we know what that is going to be!) is a sensible way ahead. It will be very frustrating to hit one of these ranks/rates and have to pause for an indeterminate time waiting for someone to come up with a solution at that point, and then for it to potentially happen again a few weeks/months later.
And might I offer http://www.civilservant.org.uk/library/armed_forces_ranks.pdf as an alternative to Marie's list of ranks above? I think it's clearer to read and includes the one difference involving the Royal Marines. In the small print at the bottom this specifically mentions that it does not include the various technical ranks/rates in the Navy and RAF but they're more of a modern problem, not of the era we're working on.
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
I agree it'll definitely be a useful resource and I will get onto it, I promise. It'll be worth spending a bit of time checking exactly which ranks were in use during the period - I'm fairly certain the RN still had Boys at that point and I'm not clear on whether appointments like Boatswain and similar were actually ranks.
Anyway, leave it with me. It will appear in due course.
Posted
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by
f0rbe5
Of course, Boys were present with Jack Cornwell VC being the most famous by far. But it would appear that they only deployed aboard cruisers and above. See http://www.gwpda.org/naval/rn_ranks_and_rates_table_1918.pdf which seems to be an excellent comparison of the various naval ranks and specialities at the time.
I suspect there were probably very few, if any, of the technical rates in the trenches, because the Navy at sea probably had a high demand for such specialities, and most of those joining the division appear to have come from volunteers for the armed forces, not from amongst those already serving. However, some oddities that I have found on a couple of WWI-related pages are: Off Stew (officer's steward), and SBS and SBA (Sick Berth Steward and Sick Berth Attendant)
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I believe Boatswain was not a rank. Probably a working position.
See link:
The boatswain works in a ship's deck department as the foreman of the unlicensed (crew members without a mate's licence) deck crew. Sometimes, the boatswain is also a third or fourth mate. A bosun must be highly skilled in all matters of marlinespike seamanship required for working on deck of a seagoing vessel.
No rank for Boatswain appears on the link: http://www.civilservant.org.uk/library/armed_forces_ranks.pdf
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As mentioned by by forbe5:
Here is a Photo and interesting article re Jack Cornwall VC. Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cornwell
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Interesting Article re Boys in Naval Units ww1.
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Part of an Article re 63rd Royal Naval Division
The 63rd (Royal Naval) Division was a United Kingdom infantry division of the First World War. It was originally formed as the Royal Naval Division at the outbreak of the war, from Royal Navy and Royal Marine reservists and volunteers, who were not needed for service at sea. The division fought at Antwerp in 1914 and at Gallipoli in 1915. In 1916, following many losses among the original naval volunteers, the division was transferred to the British Army as the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, re-using the number from the disbanded second-line 63rd (2nd Northumbrian) Division Territorial Force. As an Army formation, it fought on the Western Front for the remainder of the war.
Full Article Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/63rd_(Royal_Naval)_Division
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