War Diaries Talk

Tagging Operation Orders

  • stoat11 by stoat11

    Hi,
    I have bumped into the Operation Orders issued to the 13 BATTALION ROYAL IRISH RIFLES in late June 1916. There is loads of interesting detail and by mistake I started to use the "reference" tag under "orders" to capture everything I saw. When I started the next page I checked the Field Guide and found that I was using "reference" incorrectly. There doesn't seem to be a way to capture all this detail unless I tag it as a Diary page. Or am I misunderstanding and it doesn't matter. The pages in question are in 13 BATTALION ROYAL IRISH RIFLES (1 OCT 1915 - 31 OCT 1917) WO/95/2506/3 Page 40 onwards

    Cheers,
    Mike

    Posted

  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    Hi Mike
    It's not that it doesn't matter, it's more that this isn't really the point of the project. Orders are fascinating and they tell us a lot about what was supposed to happen. However "no plan survives contact with the enemy" and thus they do not necessarily represent what did actually happen. OWD is more concerned with what actually happened, than with detail of Orders, even though I agree they can be fascinating. This may be an issue that gets looked at again when the problem of how to tag the higher formation diaries (which consists largely of Orders!) is revisited.

    Please don't tag them as diary pages 😃

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    Mike, if you see something in orders or a report that you think is noteworthy but is not covered by the limited tags assigned to those types of pages, you can always leave a comment in the Comment box.

    For purposes of the OWD project, though, we need to tag only what actually happens, as Heather says above, and only the activities that the diary unit is directly involved in. So, for example, when an infantry diary author mentions something about "our artillery" or "the battalion on the left mounted a raid" those should not be tagged. Those activities will be tagged in that other unit's diary.

    I've noticed in my own tagging lately, that the battalions of the 16th and 36th divisions seem to have a lot of interconnections and there seems to be a tendency of the diary authors to include details from their fellow battalions' activity.

    Posted

  • erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be by erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be

    In the diary of the 6th Connaught Rangers the author of the diary often refers to the 7th Leinster regt and the 6th R.Irish regt and even mentions their positions. I tag these regiments as "Other Unit" and Reason Other.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    That's what I'd do too, Erik.

    Posted

  • stoat11 by stoat11

    Hi.
    Many thanks for your replies. You've cleared up a lot of issues that I have been wondering about where the available tagging options don't seem to apply.

    Thanks again.

    Cheers,
    Mike

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    Glad we can help, Mike.

    Posted

  • Stork by Stork

    A similar question... Sometimes a Report on an operation has so much detail that I tag it as a Diary so that things like grid references, casualties, times, etc, can be tagged. Is that OK, or would you prefer that I tag it as a Report?

    Posted

  • erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be by erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be

    I tag it as a report.

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator in response to Stork's comment.

    The decision to tag a report as a Report or a Diary Page sometimes does become a judgment call. You just want to capture all that rich detail!

    I would say that if the report basically repeats information that is in the diary, it should be tagged as a Report.

    However, if the information in the diary is scanty and the report is detailed, it might work to tag the report as a Diary Page. I have tagged diaries where the entry may say something like "The Bn. took part in an attack. See Appendix A," and in those cases, I have definitely tagged a detailed report as a Diary Page.

    If you do tag a Report as a Diary Page, leaving a comment to that effect will help others interpret the information and data collected.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I tend to tag reports as diary pages if they're laid out like a diary page, i.e. if they are clearly delineated by date.

    Posted

  • Stork by Stork

    Got it- thanks.

    Posted

  • erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be by erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be

    Should I tag this page as a diary page AWD0003j9m

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator in response to erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be's comment.

    I think this is best tagged as a report, even if it is not covered in detail in the diary. It does not seem to be an event of particular significance, and the report seems to cover mostly the weather and the barrages.

    You can fill in some of the detail by using comments and hashtags, such as #gridreferences.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Yes, definitely a report.

    Posted