14th Durham L.I. - Diary incomplete

[ericwebb]

I'm researching Claud Lovat Fraser who was a subaltern in 14th Durhams 1914 - 1916. I downloaded the War Diary from Kew, the first volume starts in mid-flow, literally mid-sentence, on 12th November 1915, nothing earlier. I can well understand why pages covering the Battle of Loos - when the Battalion was well beaten-up - might be missing but this is peculiar. I don't often get as far as War Diaries, are lost section common? As an allied topic, do they generally only cover active service or were they kept during training too? If so, something like a year is missing from November 1915 when 14th Battalion was first assembled.

Eric

[Phil Evans]

Eric,

Did you download all the files (7 I believe)? The files are also split by size rather than content, so check the end of the previous file.

I don't know how well they sorted this initial batch, so the pages may be missing, or misfiled.

Generally there are not many Home Service diaries. There is a section in WO 95, but if I remember rightly, most are for late 1915 over into early 1916. Sometimes they can also be found at the front of the active service diaries, but are a rarity.

Phil

[ericwebb]

Phil thanks. I have discovered a few misplaced pages but no 'chunks'. Incidentally, of the 7 files in the 'zip' 4 in fact belong to 2nd Durhams - why bundled together Kew alone knows!

Eric

[jasonmarkwebber]

The war diaries are usually bundled by brigade, in this case the 18th, where they were alongside the 2nd Durhams. Diaries therefore often start from when they joined the brigade, in this case the 28th November 1915. They were previously with the 64th Brigade, 21st Division so the earlier diary may be there?

Just a thought.