War Diaries Talk

Operation War Diary - 2017 Status Report

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    2017 has been another great year for Operation War Diary and we'd like to thank all the volunteers who have contributed their time and energy to the project.

    Since starting, we've registered just shy of 16,000 individual volunteers. Contributions vary from one or two tags to tens of thousands of tags - we're very lucky to have a dedicated core group of volunteers who have stayed with us through pretty much the entire project to date.

    In total, 871,236 tags have been placed on 140,995 completed diary pages. That already gives us a fantastic resource for indexing and search purposes. However, the project is far from complete - we're looking at approximately 1.5 million diary pages, so there will be plenty to keep us busy for a long time to come. Roll on 2018!

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  • sdorman120 by sdorman120

    A long, long way still to go then!

    I'm very glad that I signed up to participate; not only is it interesting and eye-opening reading the diary pages, I feel it is a rewarding and very worthwhile project in which to be involved. Recent delving into family history research has shown me at least two ancestors who fought on the Western Front and working on these diaries provides an invaluable perspective on their likely experiences.

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  • cyngast by cyngast moderator in response to sdorman120's comment.

    I feel very much the same way. The project is interesting, eye-opening, and worthwhile. As someone who is more interested in Renaissance or American history, that last because I am American, when I saw the notice about the project I thought, "World War I? British? No, not really interested," but the chance to work with actual documents drew me in anyway. I have since learned an enormous amount about the war itself and come to appreciate the sacrifices and sheer drudgery those men endured.

    I'll stick with it as much as I can for the foreseeable future!

    Thanks for the update, Rob. It's interesting to see how we're doing.

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

    Thanks Ral for the figures given for those who have participated in this amazing project. I agree with all the comments people have made.

    These diaries reflect so much on what the men went through on the Western Front. Each diary is varied and interesting, although at times very sad. Whoever devised this project did an amazing job. I think it is very well thought out for people tagging these diary pages. Glad to be part of this team, nice to know you are not just working on your own and have people to communicate with, especially if you have a question to be answered.

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  • deehar by deehar in response to ral104's comment.

    Wow! Thanks @ral104 - I thought we were on the home stretch. I see I still have a chance of coming across some of my great-uncles who served and died.

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

    Another way to see how much more work still needs to be done, is to look at this page from The Long, Long Trail that lists all the divisions involved in the war: http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/order-of-battle-of-divisions/ So far, we have worked primarily on only the first seven of those, with some diaries from a couple of the Irish Divisions--I think they were the16th and the 36th-- and two Indian Divisions added in. So you see there are many, many more diaries to go. We won't be working with those divisions that did not go to the Western Front, however.

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I'm hoping we'll get a new batch of diaries from the 31st Division up in the next couple of weeks.

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

    Thanks for that information Ral. I Have been looking at this link for the 31st Division, to see what Brigades/Regiments etc it contains.. http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/order-of-battle-of-divisions/31st-division/

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist in response to marie.eklidvirginmedia.com's comment.

    Yes, we should get most of those units. I've been going through the National Archives diary inventory and picking out the relevant ones so they can identify the image files and upload them. That might take a bit of time, but everything's underway.

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  • Notes by Notes

    Thanks for the update. It's good to know the project will be continuing (hopefully with a few modifications to make the tagging easier?).

    I would be interested to know if other regions will be covered. While the principal focus is understandably the West Front, conflict was fierce in other areas. Most people know about Gallipoli without really knowing where it is or why we fought there. At one time it was said there were as many troops and as much ordnance gathered in the Sinai as there was in Western Europe - yet this second Front seems largely forgotten today.

    These are just two examples; it might be interesting to find a few diaries from far flung corners to open people's eyes to the scale of operations in this war.

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

    This project is limited to the Western Front, I'm afraid. I know that the diaries from the Gallipoli campaign have all been digitized and I believe they have been uploaded to ancestry.com.co.uk. Otherwise, any of the diaries that are digitized can be downloaded from the National Archives for a small fee.

    Occasionally some of our diaries have included brief introductions or closing pages from places such as India, Egypt, and the Italian Alps, but that is as far as we are likely to get away from northern France and Belgium.

    What modifications would you like to see? It's not likely that we can make any changes, but perhaps we can help you deal with the issues you have by making suggestions about how to use the tags.

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  • Notes by Notes

    Thank you for that cyngast. Sorry for slow reply. I have found the 'Person' tagging rather clunky due to the length of the alphabetical list of ranks, and noticed that when you fill in additional data fields, only the basic information shows on the flag pop-up, so is there any point filling in those fields (e.g. unit)?

    I'm finding the 'Army Life' menu rather vague. As I'm interested in the work of the RAMC (Field Ambulances, Sanitary Sections etc) most of the text relates to their efforts towards maintaining hygienic conditions, cleaning uniforms, medical work, site inspections, kit inspections etc. It seems rather pointless to tag these pages thus when that is the core of their work.

    The 'reason' menu under 'Other Unit' is rather confusing when actually applied, particularly when trying to mark correctly what unit is the 'relieving unit' and which is the 'unit being relieved'! - but maybe I'm just dim.

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

    Sorry to be slow replying to your post, too!

    The Person tag's list of ranks is long, but I have found that the more I use it I get a sense of how far to scroll to find Private, Sergeant, or Second Lieutenant. Kind of like typing. It would be great if all the most used ranks could be clustered at the top, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, we probably won't ever be able to change that.

    I know exactly what you mean about how to use the Army Life tag when tagging sanitary sections and field ambulances. I've been confused myself with that when tagging those types of diaries. The key is to remember that both the Unit Activity tag and the Army Life tag should be used only when they apply to the unit of the diary you are tagging. So, for example, if the Sanitary Section's own blankets are being disinfected or the men are getting their own baths, you would use the Hygiene tag. If the Sanitary Section's work in a diary entry is disinfecting blankets for an infantry battalion, then you could tag it as Other under the Unit Activity list or not tag it at all. Also, if the diary mentions that an infantry working party is clearing a battlefield, you would not tag it at all unless the sanitary section/field ambulance men are also involved in the activity.

    For the Other Unit tag, I find I use Other for most instances, unless there is a clear statement in the diary as to why the other unit is mentioned. In Infantry Battalion diaries, you sometimes see mention of which units are on their left and right when they go into the front line or attack. For sanitary sections and field ambulances, you will most often tag other units as Other, because they are mentioned as where patients come from or where sanitary conditions need improvement, they are not directly involved with the unit of the diary.

    For Relieving and Being Relieved, you have to think about which one is going into the position and which one is leaving it. If the diary unit is arriving at a point they are relieving the previous unit, and if they are leaving a point they are being relieved. Sometimes the language in the diary can be confusing, so I try to think of it in these terms.

    I hope this helps. Please let me know if I haven't answered your questions satisfactorily.

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

    Person's tag: I just starts typing the rank and he appears.

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

    That's true, Erik. I tend to forget that you can do that. I got in the habit of scrolling to find the various ranks before I knew that you can type them in.

    Thank you for the reminder.

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

    By the way, if you do not want to type in the whole rank say, Regimental Quarter Master Sergeant - just type in Capital R in the rank box and it will bring ranks beginning with that initial up (you then can quickly pick the rank you want - when just typing in the initial of any rank).

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    It works on the first three letters of the rank, which can be useful. But if you encounter a Second Lieutenant, typing 'Sec' will only get you Second Corporal, so you still have to scroll a place or two. But for most ranks, just typing the first few letters will bring up what you need.

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  • Notes by Notes

    Useful answers all, thank you everyone. Viz: tagging the activity only relating to the 'diary unit', I may have got this wrong. The San Secs I have seen never mention treatment of their own gear, only that of other units. I would assume that their own clobber (probably not a large amount compared to the brigades etc they are supporting) just gets chucked in with the rest as required. Vital but often very repetitive work, thus not a terribly interesting read, which may explain why these diaries seem to be among the last to be completed!

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist in response to Notes's comment.

    Sanitary Sections, transport units and so on often do get left to last as they're generally not the most scintillating reads. That said, a lot depends on the author of the diary. You can sometimes find some unexpected gems.

    In general, though, tagging these sorts of units will involve a lot of 'unit movement' tags, a lot of 'other units' and probably not too much else.

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  • f0rbe5 by f0rbe5

    Re. getting to a rank like Second Lieutent. Just keep tapping 'S' - you scroll through all the options!

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