Were there penalties for incorrect War Diary entries?

[Rockdoc]

While Diaries differ enormously in their contents, I've not found one that's got any clearly-inaccurate entries in it before today. I've transcribed the Diaries of the 14 AA Sections that served on the Salonika front and I'm now working through them again to put all the entries for each day together in a form that I hope will help by allowing easier cross-referencing. Already some entries that have been difficult to read have been clarified by comparison with other Diaries but it's gone the other way this afternoon.

90th AAS' No 1 Gun near Janes has only one entry for 14th April 1917: No aerial activity this day. No 2 Gun of 94th AAS near Snevce records only single aircraft patrolling around Doiran. 98th AAS, however, records 73rd as signalling the sight of high-angle (i.e. AA) fire in the Janes area, which isn't recorded in 73rd's Diary and couldn't have happened anyway, and a squadron of 16 planes flying South over Snevce. Something's obviously become mangled, possibly with 98th's Diary being written up some days afterwards and the signal records getting shuffled in the meantime. Such errors and lax procedures might be excusable in hairy situations but 98th AAS was at a relatively quiet position near Guvesne and saw no activity itself that day so, to me, there's little excuse. I've been told that the Diaries were studied by the top brass as they came in each month so you'd think someone ought to have picked up the discrepancies.

Is anyone aware of any regulations about the accuracy requirements for War Diaries? Whose neck would have been on the block, the O/C?

Keith

[centurion]

Who would check in any case?

[charlesmessenger]

Field Service Regulations Part II Section 140 lays down how war diaries should be kept. Accuracy was certainly stressed. Since these were submitted monthly to GHQ 3rd Echelon at Base you can imagine that there would have been quite a deluge and there simply would not have been the time to check them all out in detail. It was generally a matter of unit pride that they be maintained accurately, although the detail given varies enormously among units.

Charles M

[centurion]

And much would depend upon which officer was given the job of keeping it. I believe that it was the adjutant's responsibility to ensure that it was kept but that it was a task often delegated sometimes to a junior officer who had fallen out of his good books. I've read some that were positively chatty, others very formal but still containing lots of information and others with just the bare minimum of data.

Sometimes one day must have been very like another. One can imagine conversations like:

" I say Bertie the Adjutant's landed me with the job of writing up the diary this month. What happened last Thursday?"

"Wasn't that the day that 'plane came over very high or perhaps that was Friday? Why not ask Sergeant Loomis? He's very good at that sort of thing."

"No I'll just put it in for Thursday, got nothing else for that day and I don't think anyone checks these things anyway."

[Ron Clifton]

The purpose of War Diaries, according to FSR, was to provide a record from which, in due course, a history of the campaign could be written. As other posters say, the extent of scruting they received at the time would have been minimal - they were not sent to GHQ proper but to the AG's Office at the Base, for filing.

Ron

[squirrel]

Agree with you on this Centurian. IIRC did not the OC of a battalion, battery, cavalry regiment, or equivalent sized unit etc. have to sign the diaries monthly?

In my experience, some are packed with detail and some very brief depending on whether the unit was in action, at rest, training or on the move etc.

I have noticed some, where a unit was in the front line, that while most daily entries are hand written, there is a fulsome description of a particular raid, patrol or advance that is typed up - possibly after as much information and detail as possible has been assembled some time after the event?

[centurion]

The purpose of War Diaries, according to FSR, was to provide a record from which, in due course, a history of the campaign could be written. As other posters say, the extent of scruting they received at the time would have been minimal - they were not sent to GHQ proper but to the AG's Office at the Base, for filing.

Ron

Scruting? There's a passage from Round the Horne that went something like "He's inscrutable." "No he was scruted only last week". But the general point is well taken

[ss002d6252]

IIRC did not the OC of a battalion, battery, cavalry regiment, or equivalent sized unit etc. have to sign the diaries monthly?

It seems to depend on the diary (and the officer). I've seen some that are signed off and some that are't.

[centurion]

Agree with you on this Centurian. IIRC did not the OC of a battalion, battery, cavalry regiment, or equivalent sized unit etc. have to sign the diaries monthly?

In my experience, some are packed with detail and some very brief depending on whether the unit was in action, at rest, training or on the move etc.

I have noticed some, where a unit was in the front line, that while most daily entries are hand written, there is a fulsome description of a particular raid, patrol or advance that is typed up - possibly after as much information and detail as possible has been assembled some time after the event?

But whether he always had the time (or possibly the inclination) to read them might be another matter. The style does vary enormously so whereas one writer might say something like " 2000 hours Shelled for fifteen minutes, two casualties, Sergeant Doe and Private Roe, Sergeant Doe who was killed was a great loss to the battalion being much respected by all for his cheerful behaviour in all circumstances. Private Roe was injured in the leg and sent back to the dressing station" whilst another would write "2000 hrs,Shelling 15 min. 1 NCO killed 1 Pvt wounded."

[squirrel]

The entry for the night that my uncle was killed simply reads, "Shelling in the usual places. 4 other ranks killed."

I have another diary entry for a man who was wounded during the attack at Missy sur Aisne in Spetember 1914. After a brief note of the days events it says, "Heard the sad news that Sjt. Ridgway has died of wounds in a Paris hospital".

All very different as you say.

[Ian Riley]

^{I have certainly seen plenty of evidence that diaries were checked within the unit before being submitted in the form of manuscript corrections in a different hand to the original . In 164 Infantry Brigade, the tone changes immediately that Brigadier-General Cllfford Stockwell (Buffalo Bill) takes command and he not only signs the diary off at the end of each month, but the entries for each day, every day. Some of the statements are such clear expressions of the GOC's intentions that I feel that he must have dictated the entries. It would appear, certainly in this brigade, that unit diaries were submitted through brigade HQ as in the case of the diary of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers for September 1916 in which the covering note written personally by the CO is addressed to Brigade. I would think that in this case, with a brigadier who checked his own formation's diary so meticulously (possibly against his own diary), it would be a brave CO who submitted a dodgy diary from his battalion.}

^Ian

^{Edit: I seem to be having having problems with type size - I have had to put this into (allegedly) 18 point to make it readable. My apologies if it appears giant size on the screens of other readers}

Edited 12 October , 2012 by Ian Riley

[Rockdoc]

I've certainly got every type in the AA Diaries! 73rd and 98th record every signal they sent or received verbatim. 90th tends to record what happened. 94th is on the chatty side with some humour at times. 24th and 32nd only record sightings and engagements and write nothing on days none occurred. 95th gives a single line per day, saying only that planes were seen over a number of places, until they move from Base to the XVI Corps area, when they suddenly become very comprehensive. It was the fact that 98th usually duplicates 73rd because they both record all the signals that makes this entry so remarkable.

Some Diaries are written well after the event. One of the Salonika Diaries has a note from the DAAG at the beginning basically asking why nothing's been received for months. It's probably significant that the O/C is replaced not long afterwards and the new O/C signs every month, even for the nine months before he was appointed.

It may be because the Salonika Army was relatively small and the artillery always less than needed that I get the impression the MGRA or his staff did scrutinise the Diaries. There are notes about the effects of a shell exploding near a plane or sketches of markings on enemy planes that would be useless in a fairly short time.

Keith