Sub-units
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by
01dgobbo
It's quite hard to make sense of some diary entries without referring to sub-units. About 13 Sep 1916 No 4 Cavalry Field Ambulance is moving to a new position on the Somme. The daily entries refer to the separate movement of Section A and Section B and the officer commanding B on the march, but he is not the commander of No 4 CFA so I have been coding him as 'other'. To add to the confusion there is also a 'mounted party' and a 'dismounted party' plus a group of 9 ORs and an officer who have been detached. Without some way of recording the sub-units I am ending up with coded entries that don't make any sense: places, times and the odd name apparently scattered randomly across the days. Is this useful data (apart from the names)?
Posted
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
That's an interesting one. Usually, I'd say don't worry too much about sub-units, as the overall unit should presumably be heading for the same place. However, where you have a specific officer mentioned as being i/c of a detached section, I think you could tag him as 'In command'. Strictly, I know that's not quite what he is, but anybody coming back through later and looking for him by name will then be able to work out what he's in charge of by reference to the page. You could also add a comment to this effect.
Hope that helps.
Posted
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by
cyngast
moderator
This sort of situation with sub-units going here and there also happens with machine gun companies and sometimes within Royal Engineer units. If we tag an officer as being "In command" of a sub-unit, should we also put that sub-unit in the box for "Unit" at the bottom of the Person tag?
Posted
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
Yes, don't know why I didn't think of that! Excellent suggestion.
Posted