TNA WO 95 War Diaries index finding aids accessibility

[John Gilinsky]

Hello all.  According to the online TNA website:

"A contents list and Index to Battalions etc. and of the Brigades and Divisions to which Battalions were attached are in the reading rooms at the National Archives."

 

I urgently need to quickly and accurately access ALL medical WO 95 war diaries.  Any other types or sources enabling researchers to do this also will be very appreciated by all.

I am aware of the Long Trail's excellent TABLE on their website covering hospital admission and discharge.   Can someone though please help me and others with an out of country researcher's need to obtain all WO 95 research finding aids that ca be accessed easily via computers?

Thanks.é

 

 

1 minute ago, John Gilinsky said:

Hello all.  According to the online TNA website:

"A contents list and Index to Battalions etc. and of the Brigades and Divisions to which Battalions were attached are in the reading rooms at the National Archives."

 

I urgently need to quickly and accurately access ALL medical WO 95 war diaries.  Any other types or sources enabling researchers to do this also will be very appreciated by all.

I am aware of the Long Trail's excellent TABLE on their website covering hospital admission and discharge.   Can someone though please help me and others with an out of country researcher's need to obtain all WO 95 research finding aids that ca be accessed easily via computers?

Thanks.

 

 

 

[TEW]

There's an awful lot of medical diaries in WO95. Are you sure you want to establish all the content for access.

 

TNA'S list may have been the order of battle that used to be a free download but has now been withdrawn.

 

I have a small percentage of medical diaries, last count around 750!! That's been added to since the freebies.

 

Possibly the simplest way is to use Discovery and do a WO95 search for search terms EG Hospital, Clearing, Field Ambulance, Ambulance Train, Motor Ambulance Convoy. If you only want France/Flanders you'll have to filter out the other theatres. You can then download the results for each term as a csv which will work as a spreadsheet, although it needs editing.

 

This depends on spreadsheet skills!

 

If you want them there are ADMS for each division and sometimes a DADMS.

 

Ditto for each Corps, and usually only a DMS one for each Army.

 

Then the bases, hospital ship's, sanitation, etc. list goes on.

TEW

 

 

 

[Guest]

This is pretty much impossible at the moment, as TNA  is shut-so accessing materials in it's Library is problematic. Apart from anything that others chip in, I am aware that TNA has/did have a listing of war diaries in typesxcript- it ran to 4 volumes and was well organised.by army,division,brigade and battalion. I had a copy of this set in 2008 as a bookseller, when TNA disposed of a good few tons of  printed books,etc-as either superseded or duplicate.  Keep an eye on TNA website-and be prepared to hit the online library catalogue of its book holdings as well. If there is one thing the nice lady librarian at TNA could be faulted a little for, it is the -obviously-irresistible urge to keep re-classifying their military book holdings-especially regimentals and continually moving the little beasties around..

Edited 9 July , 2020 by Guest

[TEW]

It would be interesting to compare the four volume set to Discovery's current hits.

 

I say that because some of my downloads have proved to have incorrect descriptions, dates, etc.

 

I used the spotted an error link and most but not all were corrected by TNA. I hope others are pointing out errors which means Discovery is constantly evolving.

TEW

[Guest]

The set I had long since went to an anonymous walk-in customer (Probably a GWF member-he was that happy). One very small ancillary problem that has bedevilled me is that when I first went to TNA is that I was told there was a handlist of further War Diaries not held by TNA but sitting in former Soviet repositories as being "war loot" from 1945-the diaries from both wars having been captured by the Germans in the frontline-the quite elderly TNA man I spoke to was helpful and knowledgeable-but I never saw him again.

  A second very small problem from experience with TNA both as bookseller and researcher is their former habit-in the days before Ancestry when PRO was more or less a club of the right sort of chap-was the habit of annotating printed and photographed/mimeographed books on their shelves with annotations and corrections of which researchers  not actually at Kew would not only be unaware but not be able to access. 

[John Gilinsky]

Thanks so much Tew and Guest for your considerable contributions focusing especially on the medical subject war diaries held by TNA in WO95.

 

I need to know ALL medical and related health service

WDs to track shellshock I'd cases, medical personnel treating shellshock etc....

Using 2019 Canadian professor's book "A Weary Road...." as a guide along with exploring TNA via Discovery and the current free download accessibility.  Please bear in mind that I am also striving to investigate primary sources for other WW1 era 

relevant materials of all types.

 

In particular I am keenly interested in  battalion level medical personnel especially physicians and occupational stresses and war traumas amongst such health care providers.  As part of this research have a very incomplete db of physicians commissioned into the CEF 1914 - 1920.

 

Tx again.

John

 

 

 

[TEW]

Well, I've had some experience researching Shellshock ( & neurasthenia, psychasthenia) plus I have some understanding of what's in each level of medical WDs.

 

Tracking individual SS cases and/or personnel sounds like a vast undertaking.

 

I have noticed a disparity in how a division, corps, CCS and Army might report, record and deal with SS cases simply based on the COs understanding or beliefs on the matter.

 

I'll have to think on this further and on the 'other resources' issue.

 

I take it you've looked at the CEF medical diaries? I've noticed they also have some British higher level ones.

 

I have some diaries which more or less just list all the articles submitted for publication in EG. BMJ.

 

Are you after all theatres? That would present another problem.

TEW

[John Gilinsky]

Tx Tew.  12 years ago copied all the hospital admission and discharge registers for the 1st. Canadian Division.  A db of post war CEF pension applicants was apparently completed about a year ago under supervision of the author of "Weary Road..." but is delayed possibly due to privacy legislation etc.   

John