War Diaries Talk

New Moderator

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    You'll notice a new moderator about the boards - our very own @cyngast!

    We're all delighted she's agreed to join the mod team and, having tagged what seems to me like several divisions worth of diaries, she's very well placed to help with all sorts of queries.

    Thanks, @cyngast!

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  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    I'm happy to help out! OWD has been a great experience for me. I hope I can help, from my home in the dusty desert of the western U.S., anyone who has a question!

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    I thought I saw a new "label" by your name! Congrats! You've been an absolute stalwart of this project since the very early days and must have tagged literally thousands of pages. Sorry I haven't been around much of late. I'll try to put that right!

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  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    Thank you, Heather! It's good to see you again!

    I'm still just as fascinated by the amazing things that turn up in the diaries and glimpses we get of the men behind them as I was two years ago. It feels good to be able to give something back and help out with whatever I can.

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  • JohnstonMMSomme by JohnstonMMSomme

    Just starting out so slow and loads of questions !! As a starter the page I'm working on appears to relate to Horse Trains ? but I can't find any suitable activity or would it be supply ?

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  • JohnstonMMSomme by JohnstonMMSomme

    Also whilst I'm here, my first page had the unit at SchaexKew ? map doesn't recognise it and Google doesn't either ? Do you go out of your way to give starters particularly difficult pages ? !

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  • marie.eklidvirginmedia.com by marie.eklidvirginmedia.com

    Mons, Belgium Schaeken This has come up on the Google map. Sometimes the Author's writing can be difficult to read and they sometimes spell the places incorrectly. If not on the Google map I open a new tab, putting the place in the search box putting ww1 after the place, generally there is an article of the place I need. The site will sometimes give you the alternative spelling, if spelt wrongly.

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

    Welcome to Operation War Diary! And no, we don't save up the worst pages for new people! Right now, we've got a smaller than usual assortment of diaries available and they all seem to be trains or mobile veterinary sections. We're hoping to get some new ones up very soon.

    In the meantime, the trains can be difficult to tag. You can use the "Re-supplying" tag when things like rations and ammunition are delivered. Use "Unit movement" if the whole train, or the section you're tagging, move to a new location. (I'm not actually sure if the Horse Transport Companies have more than one section, but the Divisional Trains do.)

    Since this is a horse train, remember that the tags are for recording the activities of the people only. It can be tempting to use the "Casualty Treatment" tag for injured or sick horses, but it's only for people. If you want to highlight something relating to the horses, we have several hashtags that can be used in the comment box (the little white cartoon-like bubble to the left of the Finish button). See the Talk thread The Definitive Hashtag List which is stickied at the upper-left on the Talk page.

    The most important information to capture with the actual tags are the people and places. If a name is too difficult to decipher, you can skip over it. Marie's tips above are helpful for finding places on the maps. When you have the Place tag open, if you click on the word Google inside the box a new tab of Google Maps will open. We'll have some more tips for finding place names coming up in a blog post, too.

    Finally, if you're not overwhelmed by all this information, take your time tagging and ask as many questions as you want. We were all new here once, too, and are happy to help. I, for one, still have questions.

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  • deehar by deehar in response to marie.eklidvirginmedia.com's comment.

    Schaexken was a place apparently in Flemish France just south of the Belgian border. As far as I can see it was somewhere between Berthen and St Jan's Cappel. It appears in Flemish historical documents and in lots of WW1 records and then disappears off the map literally !

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Yes, that's true. You can see the Lancashire Fusiliers moved through there on the 20th of June: http://lib.militaryarchive.co.uk/library/infantry-histories/library/The-History-of-the-Lancashire-Fusiliers-1914-1918-Volume-II/files/assets/basic-html/page141.html

    Difficult to tell without a page link exactly where the diary page here is referring to, but if it is Schaexken, rather than the Belgian Schaeken, then it's possible to just enter that in the place tag and choose the 'None of these/Not sure' option on the drop-down list of places.

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  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    The battalion I'm presently tagging, the 12th Royal Irish Rifles, moved to Schaexken on April 6, 1917. The diary very helpfully included both the trench map--27.SE 1/20,000--and the grid references--R.35.c.95.50. The trench map shows this village as Schaexken. Today, Google Maps calls it Le Schaexhen--note it is now hen rather than ken--and it is part of Saint-Jans-Cappel. It's to the northwest of Saint-Jans-Cappel, where there is a crossroads with a roundabout clearly visible.

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Great find, Cynthia. Looking at the streetview image for the road, you can really imagine the troops moving up along it.

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  • deehar by deehar

    Nice one @cyngast ! The Francophones apparently couldn't get their tongues round the original Flemish.

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