Lists of digitised personal diaries, letters and memoirs?

[mia]

In the spirit of b3rn's list of Australian diarists of World War I, I'm looking for other lists of personal diaries, letters and memoirs that are available online. I'm particularly interested in documents that are available to read online in full.

It's for a project that aims to collect soldiers’ experiences of WWI in their own words; there's more about the project at http://www.digitalhistories.org.uk/blog/help-collect-soldiers-experiences-of-wwi-in-their-own-words/. (It may be familiar to some of you as I've been in contact with a few people about it.) Sources currently used include the Imperial War Museum, Europeana 1914-1918 and Australian War Memorial catalogues.

I'm also trying to collate definitive lists of units (particularly battalions) for each country involved in the war - as you can imagine, this is quite a sizeable task so I'd also be grateful for pointers to any online resources that list units for various national armies.

[johnboy]

Go to Long Long Trail, top left of page. Click on Regiments , click on one to see battalions of each regiment that served abroad.

[mia]

Thanks! I've been using the Long, Long Trail site (as Chris kindly gave permission to re-use the data), but it's taking a long time to do the battalions one by one like that.

[ackimzey]

There is the Library of Congress, veterans oral history project for things U.S. It has some holdings digitized and the advanced search allows for selecting WWI items only.

www.loc.gov/vets/

Ann

[mia]

Thanks Ann, that's perfect!

In case it helps others, here are other lists of diaries I know of. Some are from official repositories and others are compilations of smaller and one-off sites:

• Letters about the First World War on The Letters of 1916 project site http://dh.tcd.ie/letters1916/diyhistory/collections/show/18
• A list of memoirs and diaries at firstworldwar.com http://www.firstworldwar.com/diaries/index.htm
• Diaries listed on the Western Front Association site http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-people/diaries.html
• A massive list of Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences' compiled by volunteers of the World War I Military History List (WWI-L) http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Diaries,_Memorials,_Personal_Reminiscences
• Digitised Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) papers from the Wellcome Library http://search.wellcomelibrary.org/iii/encore/search?formids=target〈=eng&suite=def&reservedids=lang%2Csuite&submitmode=&submitname=&target=digramc&submit=Search
• Oxford's Great War Archive has memoirs http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/db/results.php?CISOBOX1=memoir&CISOFIELD1=objecb&CISOOP1=exact&CISOROOT=%2Fgwa letters http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/db/results.php?CISOBOX1=letter&CISOFIELD1=objecb&CISOOP1=exact&CISOROOT=%2Fgwa diaries http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/db/results.php?CISOBOX1=diary&CISOFIELD1=objecb&CISOOP1=exact&CISOROOT=%2Fgwa
• An archive of transcribed war diary (Kriegstagebuch), letters and blogs includes a list of diaries http://www.war-diary.com/

I'm trying to find a diary, letter or memoir for each unit, which is why I've been compiling lists of units.

[hazelclark]

Thank you, that is a super list. I was aware of First World War.com but had missed that huge list of diaries or whatever. I am not familiar with any of the others. I have been looking for personal accounts for 1st and 8th Seaforth and 1st Gordons for the longest time so maybe i will find something in there.

Hazel C.