Help with handwriting

[Rockdoc]

I'm having trouble with the handwriting on this page of 73rd AAS' Diary for the 1st and 3rd of November. I can read "at" in most entries but I have absolutely no idea what the equivalent is for these dates. It looks like "aly", which is meaningless as far as I can see, and I originally transcribed it as "app" for approaching but I don't think so now. Any eagle-eyed pal got any thoughts?

Click on the thumbnail for the full-sized image and click on the reduced image at Photobucket to enlarge it further. I've kept it deliberately large so that the handwriting can be seen all across the page for comparative purposes.

Keith

[David B]

Keith,

On windows 7 one can expand to virtually any percentage you like. At 400 percent the words look like AT. Certainly so in the second report, the other two still like AT but with a curly

suffix after the T. To me doesn't look any more than AT.

Cheers David

[Andy Wade]

Looks like at in two cases, it's the same as in the line where it says: "fire was opened at extreme range"

The other two are inconclusive, the swirl sufix may be just a flourish and the other looks a bit like an ampersand but I can't see why they would use that.

[SteveMarsdin]

Good morning Keith,

What does "at" look like on the previous pages ? It almost looks like someone has written "at" or started writing "at" and then over-written a squiggle like an 8 with the top loop incomplete - could this be an initial or mark, or even signifying a crossing out ?

Having said all that, the word is next to the location of the hostile aircraft in each case and even though it is superfluos in two occasions (as the description of the location starts "over"), I can't think of any other interpretation altering the significance of the reports !

[Rockdoc]

Thanks, both. I may be reading too much into this but there seems to be a slight difference in the K and R in Kilindir and Krastali, which may mean that two people are making the notes.

On 1st November, "at Kilindir from Doiran" makes sense because it's almost certainly a reference to a plane engaged by 24th AAS' Gun at Ravine du Faux Col. They record it as an LVG "scouting the area between Doiran, Kilindir, Janes and Kallinova". The record for the 3rd makes no sense if it's "at over 80th BDE HQ", though. The entry for 4th is very unclear. It could be an extremely flourished "at" or an at that's been overwritten by a figure 8. Unfortunately, although 74th AAS was on the Struma front, somewhere between the 61 and 71 km points on the Seres road, their Diary has been lost up to February 1917 so there's no cross-reference but eight planes would be an unusually high number for Salonika at this time. Is the answer (not that we'll ever know for sure) that there were two people writing up the Diary and when the time came they both wrote "Reports Received re Hostile Planes at" and then copied up the salient parts of the reports without worrying about the quality of the English? Other examples of their records don't suggest that they were very good at grammar! Take the report on their first engagement at 16.40 hours on 4th as a sample. It's almost gobbledegook and I'm fairly sure that the first NE should read NW because the position was some distance to the NW of Salonika!

Thanks again,

Keith

[Rockdoc]

What does "at" look like on the previous pages ?

Most are clearly "at", with the occasional use of "@". In fact, looking at the next page of the Diary, there's another example of what appears to be a character overwritten by a figure 8 in the record for 6th November but that one is quite clearly "@" with a ridiculous flourish at the end of the curved stroke.

Thanks for the suggestion to look elsewhere. I should have thought of that myself.

Keith