Admin spof Posted 14 January , 2014 Admin Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Just saw this on the TNA website Today The National Archives is making thousands of digitised First World War unit war diaries from France and Flanders available online. The unit war diaries are among the most popular records from our First World War collection (file series WO 95) and the first in a series of First World War records to be digitised as part of our centenary programme - First World War 100. Increasing access onlineWe have digitised around 1.5 million pages of war diaries so far, and will be releasing them throughout this year. This first batch of unit war diaries reveals the real-time account of the first three cavalry and the first seven infantry divisions who were part of the first wave of British army troops deployed in France and Flanders, just over 300,000 pages in total. It seems to be all the diaries from Divisional HQ downwards for the units involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Black Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 great stuff, there's a few i've been waiting for. [edit] been transcribing a few, quite easy and fascinating. crowd sourcing is the way to go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auchonvillerssomme Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 The news reports on Radio 5 live are a bit misleading, they have been reporting that they are free and are personal diaries of soldiers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanCurragh Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 The news reports on Radio 5 live are a bit misleading, they have been reporting that they are free and are personal diaries of soldiers. Yes, a comment to that effect by Andy Robertshaw (re personal diaries) - I think there must be more to this project than just the official war diaries Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Is this the same site that Luke has posted (Click), or are they different projects. I mean, we are not getting the black and white, (whole brigade) diaries? Which is ok BTW. Just wondering. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Hone Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Yes the early radio reports were rather muddled and did indeed imply that these were soldiers' personal diaries. Later on a chap from the NA who was interviewed ( not Andy Robertshaw in this case) did try to put the matter straight by explaining that they were unit war diaries. However he did also say that a lot of additional material is included alongside including, particularly in the early war period, some personal accounts by individuals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mandy hall Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Just been reported on Breakfast News on BBC. Luke is interviewed. If my memory is correct from Conference, it is the same Luke. Mandy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MickLeeds Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 BBC article: The first batch of 1,944 digitised diaries detail the experiences of three cavalry and seven infantry divisions in the initial wave of British army troops deployed in 1914. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25716569 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staffsyeoman Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Yes, just seen the BBC Breakfast coverage with the ubiquitous Bob Hall (how does he get all the military history reports going?)...and the coverage is irritating as it is muddling war diaries with 'diaries' and loading rather over-emotional commentary on top of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ss002d6252 Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Has there been any release dates been given on the later diaries ? Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Nulty Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 But 'Discovery' remains as difficult to navigate as ever. I suppose it must just be me, but I simply can't get the hang of it and always, ALWAYS struggle to find anything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraemeClarke Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Morning Steve Use this link http://www.arcre.com/wdsearch Its easy peasy. Change the 2011 to 1919 (or you get all the WW2 diaries as well) and put in as little as poss ie 1/5th battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment put in 5 Staffordshire. Its REALLY EASY. Regards, Graeme Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John(txic) Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Graeme, STREWTH! Even I can find things.... It's brilliant - thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 The BBC news radio coverage this morning was nonsense. Goodness knows why. "Soldier's diaries" ... "never before seen" ... yaddayadda. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul leeson Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Hi is it just me or is 'Discovery' very hard to use ? Can not find any of the first 7 Infantry divisions !! Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 It is not that hard. Enter something like '7 AND division' in the search term, and 'WO95' in the 'search within'. It also helps if, once the results have been returned, you hit 'sort by reference'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E Wilcock Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 I dont think it is easy. May be because the site is overwhelmed today? My problems with the NA Kew catalogues go back years so this could be user error. But today my searches either failed (not enough info provided about how to enter Division and Number) or led me to the complete catalogue listing of War diaries. Thanks for the advice above Chris -about inserting AND but non experts need guidance. Then I tried the operation War Diaries link which did, in theory, lead to a tutorial but I failed the tutorial too. The pop up screen asked one to select on a greyed out page and if one closed the pop up, one lost the tutorial. A further choice led to me a non-operational link. A fresh effort (1 Battalion East Surrey Unit selected at random because it was shown in a list of results) led to my being asked to pay £3.36 to download. In our family archive, I have personal letters from people who did serve in 1914 so I thought it might be a chance to see what they were doing officially. Of course where the infantry is concerned I come as a complete amateur and beginner - It has taken me 11 years to get the hang of the Royal Field Artillery! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin spof Posted 14 January , 2014 Author Admin Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Worryingly, it looks like all the other previously available diaries have been taken offline.Can anyone find anything above WO 95/1669 being available to download? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraemeClarke Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Paul and Wilcock, Why dont you follow my advice in Post # 13. IT WORKS !!Graeme Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Nulty Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Use this link http://www.arcre.com/wdsearch Graeme - yep, that's fantastic, many thanks It is not that hard. Well, I suppose it had to happen. After 10 years or so on GWF, I have finally disagreed with Chris about something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Well, I do use it every day and have learned how to "drive" it, I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 The other approach to searching is to use quotes rather than the AND that Chris suggests. So I would normally do something like WO 95 "1 battalion" "welsh regiment" (note that has to just be 1 or 2 etc not 1st, 2nd, ...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin spof Posted 14 January , 2014 Author Admin Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Along with the media bandwagon, here comes NMP to jup on it http://ww1wardiaries.co.uk/?utm_source=NMP+Customer+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=81deef4bc1-Holt&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4d89205210-81deef4bc1-138206 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 Has there been any release dates been given on the later diaries ? Craig No exact dates yet, but there will be a further batch in the spring and the remainder of what's so far digitised by the end of the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Pigott Posted 14 January , 2014 Share Posted 14 January , 2014 The BBC news radio coverage this morning was nonsense. Goodness knows why. "Soldier's diaries" ... "never before seen" ... yaddayadda. The BBC web site's no better - and it's a main news story. I used to think it was only small provincial papers that regurgitated press releases without checking anything. As for the search facility... As Chris says, you can find things if you know how to work it. But, if you go to the search on their war diaries page and submit the sort of search terms that they invite you to, you'll as likely get nothing or 83,000 items from the whole of their index, not just war diaries. How this gets past even rudimentary testing is beyond me. Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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