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Remembered Today:

Who can read these co-ordinates?


Aurel Sercu

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After all these years I think I can say I can read and interpret trench map co-ordinates. Well, I do my best.  :-)

Yet, these present me with problems ...

 

1. What am I expected to read ? (The fact that the writer did not use dots does not make it any easier ...) The last 3 digits look like 103. But I know, somewhere in this 103   I should see a dot.

 

2. And if (if !) this is intended as  C.7.c.10.3   , isn't that a little odd ? (I would have expected, instead of c.10.3  ,  d.0.3 . Which is the same, isn't it ?

 

By the way I am sure that 28.C.7 etc. is meant.

 

Aurel

P.S. Thanks to DaveC for providing me with this photo.

DaveC IMGP7295 - Copy.JPG

Edited by Aurel Sercu
typos
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I think it is C.7.c.10.3. Perhaps the point of interest is very very close to the line between the two squares. 

Charlie

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Charlie,

 

I agree. (And that point on the trench map certainly makes sense. I never had any reason to disbelieve the location. Actually, I even expected it to be there, in my village Boezinge, just west of the crossroads Moortelweg - kleine Poezelstraat).

 

But somehow I was surprised, thinking that writing  d.0.3   would be more "logical" (?).

 

And is that  10  being so much smaller than the tall 3  "normal" ?

(I am thinking : maybe the ink has faded so much that this  10  is only the lower half of .... (what ?)

 

Aurel

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It does look like a mistake, perhaps he wrote c and then realised it was on the line and so proceeded with 10. Alternatively, if the top half is missing, could it be C.7.c.16.30 with the last 0 omitted? If not actually in the canal(!), this would be the path to the east.

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Open Bolt,

Thanks! What you write makes sense. (That he wrote c, and then realised etc.)

 

Is the top half of what looks like  10 missing ? I was asking that, because it seems to me that you (in the UK) somehow write the digits differently from the way we (in Belgium) do ... So I thought that who knows ...

I too thought, for a while, that the small  o  was what was left of a  6.  But then  c.16.30 .. ? I think it makes less sense. I know the area and what happened there in 1915 quite well. And the co-ordinates I gave were for a man who died when retreating south from Trench F31. And this F31trench is just a little northwest of the crossroad Kleine Poezelstraat - Moortelweg.) In other words, though c.10.3 lloks odd, the location definitely makes sense.

 

My confusion in the first place was that I had never seen co-ordinates with, after the small letter a, b, c or d, first a two-digit number, then a dot, and then a one-digit. But as you say, the man may have made a mistake, and then tried to make it look "better".

 

Aurel

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For what its worth I read it as 1.3 which in essence is the same as 10.3 but then why wouldn't it be 10.30, I have never seen '10' used, I'm not saying it wasn't just never seen it

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Jay,

You wrote : " I read it as 1.3 which in essence is the same as 10.3 "

I'm afraid I tend to disagree ...(Well, in this case ...) And this is why ... .. Seeing the one digit  3, I thought (think) the man used the one-digit system, but after the 9 came ... 10, which he may have realized is two-digit and confusing.

Do not reply right now, I will try to illustrate with the trench map.

 

Aurel

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I read it as C.7.c.10.3

I think it's just what the writer mistakenly wrote down .

Everybody knows (??) that the coordinates of a 500 yard square are described as 0-9 or 00-99 .

9 means the 50 yard square at the extreme right edge of the 500 yard square, and 99 is the 5 yard square at the right edge of the same square

You can't get anything bigger than 9 or 99.

 

So  I think we can agree that the writer meant to describe somewhere right on the boundary of two squares, the square immediately to the right of c.9.3

I agree with your first post Aurel,  he's just described its co-ordinate incorrectly instead of d.0.3 or d.00.30

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Thanks Dai Bach,

 

Basically this is my question.

You see subsquare 28.C.7.c

I marked a point with the two blue lines.

 

Question : what trench maps co-ordinates would you (or any member) give.

This is what I would write : d.0.3

And I think normally at the time the co-ordinates writer would do that too.

 

But I (we ?) tend to think that the man started in the c subsquare, and so was compelled to write the two-digit 10, though he only meant to use the one-digit system.

 

Aurel

Trench map 28.C.7.c.10.3 - marked.jpg

Edited by Aurel Sercu
I forgot the attachment!
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Ok I see, but I’m not 100% convinced yet.... In what context were the coordinates written? Is there somewhere I can view the whole image?

Edited by jay dubaya
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3 hours ago, Aurel Sercu said:

Question : what trench maps co-ordinates would you (or any member) give.

This is what I would write : d.0.3

And I think normally at the time the co-ordinates writer would do that too.

 

But I (we ?) tend to think that the man started in the c subsquare, and so was compelled to write the two-digit 10, though he only meant to use the one-digit system.

Yes.

Exactly that.

And d.0.3 is here:

 

Coordinates.jpg

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Thanks, Dai Bach.

 

And to think that nowadays, as it is the industrial estate, it is no longer possible to go there. (Only to "feel the atmosphere", not to dig of course.) But 14 - 20 years ago, I spent suite some time in the ground there, with our team,, even finding remains. Of soldiers .. However, never a man who could be identified as KSLI ...

 

Aurel

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