War Diaries Talk

Should I tag the time if it's not in the time column?

  • azzin by azzin

    Apologies if this has been answered (After a few weeks away I can't even find my original question about this!)...The field guide says to only tag time if it appears in the time column, but the diary I'm doing puts the times the unit sets out/attacks etc down as part of the narrative. Should I still tag it using the 'time' tag?

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    The answer given previously to this has been no, only tag times in the time column.

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  • makfai by makfai

    The only problem with only tagging times in the column is exemplified by the following: all the adjutants in the 24 Bn Manchester Regt only use the time column to record the time they make the entry in the diary. This column NEVER refers to to the time of the incident. The various adjutants always put the incident time in the main-body of the entry.

    This means that - if we only tag the time in the column (i.e. the time that the entry was made in the war diary) - we end up with about 30 entries per month all showing 10pm and know nothing about the timing of the activities undertaken by the battalion even though those details are available. This seems valueless to me.

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    I agree your Unit's adjutant is not recording anything useful by simply noting what time he writes up the diary. I have tagged 6 different units and not seen any other Unit adjutant do this! However I can only repeat what the Field Guide says and what has been said in these forums before by other moderators.

    "Only tag entries in the Time column, recording the hour, minutes and AM (before midday) or PM (after midday). If a period of time is recorded as a range place the first tag at the start of the entry and enter the first time then place the second tag at the end and record the last time in the range. There is no need to tag times mentioned in the narrative."

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  • makfai by makfai

    I agree that what you have quoted is an accurate quote of the Field Guide but equally to omit the timings in the narrative in ALL cases is of no value to researchers.

    Just before the piece you quoted, the Field Guide emphasises the need for accuracy saying: 'Exact times were critically important to ensure that co-ordination between different units, between the artillery and infantry and between air and ground forces were achieved. Mistakes with time could prove fatal.'

    If these RELEVANT times are available but not tagged then they devalue the information. It seems counter-intuitive to omit data which should be tagged simply because the original author failed to complete the form correctly while under battle conditions.

    I think that this is another example of where the Field Guide needs to be amended to reflect the experience of ACTUAL tagging.

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  • azzin by azzin

    Yes, I agree totally with makfai's posts - this has been my experience with tagging. The diary keepers of E battery RHA only ever put the times that they start marching/withdrawing or start and finish firing down as part of the narrative.

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  • danberto by danberto

    I put all of the times in.

    Having said that, I'm not convinced that any times are particularly useful. I cannot imagine many people searching the diaries to see if anything happened at 3.23 pm.

    I've done numerous diaries and the vast majority of them do not enter timings in the column. They are entered in the body of the descriptive comment. Undoubtedly there were guidelines as to how the diaries needed to be completed, however experience shows they were vastly different interpretations of the guidelines.

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  • eatyourgreens by eatyourgreens moderator, admin

    I don't think the times will be used for indexing and searching, but the times are used are to link up when things happened. Eg. if you tag 3.23pm in the left column, then activity:movement in the narrative, then we'll record the movement as happening at 3.23pm. You can preview this using the timeline (top right, next to the Finished button).

    I've posted a copy of the guidelines for the diaries, that adjutants used: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/boards/BWD0000005/discussions/DWD00000tz

    There are a variety of interpretations of those guidelines by officers so, yes, there is a judgement call as to whether the times make sense and, if so, whether to include them for an individual diary.

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  • makfai by makfai

    I see the regs do not say that the narrative has to be structured chronologically under that date nor that the time of the event should be placed in the time column. The regs simply say, The hour at which important occurrences took place should be entered with exactitude.

    I can see why some Adjts took a non-chronological approach and that was because the record was not a contemporaneous record. It was written later. The Bn I have been doing recently adopted a structured approach to each day as follows. This approach meant it was easier to see what each company was doing on any particular day. Their entries were made as follows

    Weather report

    Activities listed by company (e.g. A, B, C, D) including timings; grid refs; unit strength etc

    Other info (e.g. People leaving/returning; messages of thanks; etc)

    Casualties

    This meant that the time column was used only to record the time the entry was made in the diary. So I feel the Field Guide was wrong to require inclusion of ONLY those times which appeared in the Time Column.

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  • makfai by makfai in response to eatyourgreens's comment.

    I hadn't paid much attention to the timeline until you mentioned it but before I finished the last page I thought I would take a look. Everything is inaccurately recorded as if it happened at 10pm because that is the time recorded in and tagged from the 'time' column.

    I also noted that, albeit entered as 1 wounded 1 killed, the timeline gives only a combined total of 2 casualties.

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  • eatyourgreens by eatyourgreens moderator, admin

    If you're recording the times of events inaccurately, I'd say leave those times out. There's a certain amount of individual judgement that has to be applied to deciding which information from each diary is worth recording. I find the timeline tool useful for checking whether the tagged information makes sense, before submitting it.

    Re. casualties - the timeline gives a summary of the tag contents but the information submitted back, and saved, would be 1 wounded, 1 killed.

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  • makfai by makfai in response to eatyourgreens's comment.

    I think I will use the Timeline every time! I wish i had checked it before as i could have seen how the tagging translated. It is quite clear in reading it that entering the time the war diary was compiled is seriously misleading. Your suggestion re using the Timeline as a checker should go in the Field Guide.

    Thanks for the clarification re casualties

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    I think the tutorial explained how to use the timeline to check at the end of the page didn't it? You're right though, it is useful.

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  • makfai by makfai in response to HeatherC's comment.

    You could be right about the tutorial as it is that long ago since I did it that I can't remember!
    P.S.
    Just done tutorial again and you are right it does say you can use timeline to check. Perhaps its significance and value is more apparent now I have done a few pages!

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