TIFEVISIT, IDEIESMO, IDEEPAW, IDEISABATE, IDEENTRANS, IDEENLAND, IDELJACK, IDIERCAT, IDEENRENG - codes in 2BRC WD

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 26/04/2022 at 11:56, DavidOwen said:

Not sure if it has been mentioned before but department C2 was responsible for the ciphering of telegrams. Might be worth digging further? https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C14500

As an aside the codes had changed by WW2 http://www.ww2talk.com has a thread found via a search for "telegraph codes" sorry can't post the exact link as my tablet is playing up.

Edit: on the laptop now so here is the direct link to the ww2 item - may have some ww1 pointers in it http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/general-procedure-for-dealing-with-casualties-in-war-1939.60053/page-2#post-694531

Thank you David, C2 might be worth a look. The government telegraph code from WW2 suggests that it is definitely the WW1 equivalent that will have the answer to these code words. There is clearly no relation at all between the letters used in the code words in WW2 and their actual meaning. I had thought that someone in an earlier post on this thread had warned against expecting the code words to be obviously related to the actual words that they stand for; I now can't find that post, but, if such a warning was given, it was clearly a wise one.

It seems certain that the code words had altered radically between WW1 and WW2, but maybe not before 1933, so it might still be worth looking at the 1933 code in the British Library as suggested by Maureen, so it's useful to know that there may be ways in which access to a British Library document might be facilitated - thank you, SeaJane, for that.

The 1916 doument in the Australian Memorial Library still looks the best bet, however, if anyone reading this thread can easily gain access to that ...

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Thank you for the suggestion about the Signals Museum, Alan..

Just to say that I have now followed up this suggestion and SeaJane's suggestion by sending emails to both the Signals Museum and to the British Library, and will report on what transpires.

[TEW]

While doing some background work in the Casualty List topic I've noticed the C2 reference quite often. Usually given as C2: Casualties.

Reading the full TNA 'Administrative / biographical background' it says:

.......all work on telegrams including their encipher and decipherment; printing and stationery and responsibility for confidential and secret papers

C2: Casualties may have had a general role in dealing with (creating?) all the lists for Record Offices and the Press Bureau proir to the lists being published.

I've not seen anything in a WO363 file yet that's been enciphered but I have seen open telegrams to or from C2: Casualties regarding 'dangerously ill' or similar.

TEW

 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

While waiting for either the Signals Museum or the British Library to reply, I have had another go at approaching the question from the other end, this time looking at IDELJACK, of which I can find three examples in the 2 BRC WD:

1. Lieut. C,D.G. Deen, RFA, whose right leg and left foot were amputated and who is designated as IDELJACK on 23/02/1917, where IDELJACK is apparently followed by a translation " i.e. Transferred home dangerously ill", who I think must have survived as I can't find him on the CWGC website, but I don't know anything else about him or his treatment.

2. Lieut. W.B. Mcdonald, 72nd Canadian Battalion, who was designated as TIFEVISIT on 23/02/1917 (apparently followed by a translation "i.e. Placed on dang. ill list"), and then IDELJACK on 16/04/1917. He also certainly survived as I have found his service record in the Canadian Archives online.

3. 2/Lt. R.H. Peckston (Column 61 in my table), 7th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers, who was suffering from Purpura Lymphatic Leukaemia, and designated as IDEIESMO on 09/10/1917, and IDELJACK the following day. He died on 22 October 1917 following his return to England, and is buried at the Stockton on Tees (Durham Road) Cemetery according to the CWGC.

I did wonder whether "Transferred home dangerously ill" might possibly be distinguishable from the other words that apparently refer to patients being transferred dangerously ill (IDEENTRANS and IDEENRENG) if it meant literally being transferred "home", i.e. out of the army hospital system, perhaps in 2nd Lieutenant Peckston's case to his family home to die., Lieutenant McDonald's service record shows that he was admitted to the Empire Hospital for Officers, Vincent Square on 17/04/1917, which I have seen referred to as a "private hospital" https://wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/hospitals/hospital.php?pid=13630, and a "hospital for paying patients" https://historic-hospitals.com/english-hospitals-rchme-survey/greater-london/, so maybe this was not a military hospital? He was moved to the Daughters of the Empire Hospital, Hyde Park Place on 27/04/1917, and discharged from hospital on 17/07/1917.

Edited 10 December , 2022 by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy

[TEW]

Just found a TIFEVISIT example on a Progress Report, no name to go with it sadly but it's the first time I've seen one of these codes printed.

TEW

Edited 15 May , 2022 by TEW

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

That's interesting, Tew. So it wasn't only 2 BRC that was using the word Tifevisit. Interesting, too, that in the Progress Reports they weren't using a code word for "Seriously Ill" in the next entry.

[TEW]

Not sure which unit produced the progress report but many are from CCS.

There are lots of progress reports like this with various notes along the lines of Dangerous or Serious lists and the man's status EG. Improving, taken off dangerous list placed on serious list. occasional entries with (may be visited).

The above is the first with a codeword.

I've checked a few names off against WO363 files and only saw one telegram (quoting C2 Casualties) giving the same kind of information but not in coded form.

I've never seen anything about a CCS or hospital coding telegrams like the progress report. I think the AG had to encode for the War Office.

I'd say at present once the decoding had been done perhaps by C2: Casualties the details were duplicated and telegraphed across the country in uncoded form.

TEW

[TEW]

I've extracted some parts of progress reports and a Telegram.

The telegram comes from the service record of a man on a badly damaged HA list posted in the 'Casualty List' topic. He was reported as DANGEROUSLY WOUNDED.

It was sent from the WO to Chatham for RE records giving his condition and for records to inform relatives. They refer to C2:Casualties  P18351 which is a Progress report as per the other examples.

There is another telegram regarding a visit arranged through Scottish Red Cross, the visit did not take place.

 

Progress Reports. I think these are the decoded versions that arrived at the WO.

The underlined capitals seem to define the condition and how it may have changed. I also think that each underlined event had to be relayed to NOK by each records office.

Some of the events could easily match up to the codes EG.  Transferred, May be Visited. Although some are more verbose; SLIGHTLY BETTER NOT YET OUT OF DANGER.

As they've been decoded there's no real need for a Records Dept the WO or anyone outside C2:Casualties to know or use the codes.

TIFEVISIT being marked on the P 64666 makes the whole code aspect a little weak I think.

TEW

 

 

[TEW]

Alan,

The ones I used earlier come from the 'Casualty List' topic:

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/89635-casualty-lists/

These are generally just old lists kept by Records Offices who re-cycled the sheets with some ending up in service files.

Off hand though I think most of the Progress Reports come from Newfoundland service records where they were retained in the relevant record for the NF man on the list.

It's complete luck as to the other men who happen to be on the same page.

There are currently about 852 Progress Reports in the other topic. This could be a tiny % of the originals.

Other list types EG. HA can also show changes to circumstance in a similar way.

TEW

 

 

[DavidOwen]

I have seen that a number of Assistant Medical Directors' diaries are available in HQ bundles via Ancestry and wonder if they may have that hidden appendix with the codes explained in one? Maybe worth a look if you have access?

I have downloaded the diaries of the St John's Ambulance Brigade Hospital from TNA on the off chance but no luck....

[DavidOwen]

The publication referred to in Alan's earlier post is also available in Canadian archives as a 1916 version...  sadly not digitised. Worldcat only records this and the Australian location, strange it isn't in the BL.

There are some references popping up in a TNA search but not the item itself.

[TEW]

Picked these two up just now. Indexed on Ancestry under Arthur Percival Salvage, Regimental Number :87, RGA.

Seems to relate to his Dangerously ill condition, permission to visit not allowed.

TEW

 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

 

On 30/11/2022 at 15:13, TEW said:

Picked these two up just now. Indexed on Ancestry under Arthur Percival Salvage, Regimental Number :87, RGA.

Seems to relate to his Dangerously ill condition, permission to visit not allowed.

Hello, Tew, well done in finding another example of the use of IDEENLAND. Am I right in thinking that the 2nd telegram that you have posted was probably the first in time, being an exchange between two military offices, and that the 1st telegram was onward transmission of the same information from RGA Records to Arthur Percival Salvage's relative, John Salvage, of Clifton, Bristol, so that the 1st telegram might be expected to be a translation of the 2nd telegram, in layman's terms?

The 2nd telegram is the one that contains the word "IDEENLAND", and in the other, the one to John Salvage, it seems to be replaced by "Dangerously Ill". The one to John Salvage says that permission to visit cannot be granted, but the other does not have anything to that effect. Might that information also be contained within the word "IDEENLAND", or would a decision about whether permission to visit would be granted be taken by RGA Records or someone else in the UK after the "IDEENLAND" telegram was received?

Not really relevant to the codes, but what was A.P. Salvage's condition? My understanding is that NYD means "Not Yet Diagnosed", but, if I have read the documents correctly, Salvage is also said to have "Arthritis", which suggests that he has been diagnosed. Or does the use of the two words together suggest that he has developed a complication of his arthritis that is not yet understood?

 

On 03/05/2022 at 16:54, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

Just to say that I have now followed up this suggestion and SeaJane's suggestion by sending emails to both the Signals Museum and to the British Library, and will report on what transpires.

I realise that I have not reported on my efforts to contact the Signals Museum and British Library, so will do so now. The Signals Museum did not reply at all.

As regards the British Library, I sent this enquiry on 3 May 2022:

I have been reading the WW1 War Diary of No 2 British Red Cross Hospital downloaded from the National Archives. From February 1916 the WD uses codes to refer to some patients, TIFEVISIT, IDEIESMO, IDEISABATE, IDEEPAW, IDEENTRANS, IDEENRENG, IDEENLAND, IDEENLOP, IDIERCAT, IDELJACK. I have concluded that these codes refer to the conditions of the men and/or their disposition, and can guess at what some of them mean in general terms, e.g. TIFEVISIT = Too ill for England, may be visited by next of kin, IDEENTRANS = Transferred dangerously ill to England. I believe that the exact translations may be contained in a list of government telegraph codes, and am aware that a revised code was produced in 1916, though I have not yet been able to discover whether a copy of that survives (there may be one in the Australian Memorial Library). The British Library has a copy of the 1933 list, Government telegraph code, UIN: BLL01004106448, and I wonder whether these codes may still appear in that

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a reply from a real person who said that they were ordering up the document referred to from storage and would come back to me. They did come back to me, but sadly only to say:

Following on from our original conversation, the book has arrived but unfortunately I can't make sense of it.  You are more than welcome to visit the British Library and take a look at this

So I am no further forward, as I am unlikely to be in the vicinity of the British Library in the near future, and anyway, if a Library Researcher can't understand the document, I doubt very much whether I would be able to do so. There is also a big questionmark, given the date of the document (1933) as to whether it will assist as regards 1917 -1918.

I did consider whether the Australian Memorial Library which holds the 1916 Government Telegraph Code Termination List (mentioned in an earlier post on this thread) might be able to offer a similar enquiry answering service to the British Library. It seems that they do offer an enquiry answering service but, understandably, expect to charge, which I am not prepared to commit to, as my interest in this topic is to satisfy my curiosity rather than for any specific purpose.

[johnboy]

TIFEVISIT

 

The immediate family encouraged to visit?

Wouldthey have used immediate family or nok?

[seaJane]

9 hours ago, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

if a Library Researcher can't understand the document

To be honest, in a library with the subject coverage (i.e. universal) of a national library, that wouldn't surprise me.

I wonder if your local public library could organise an inter-library loan?

sJ

[TEW]

Yes, I should really have put the images the other way around. The second one is the layman's version of the first one.

The below is my understanding at present, always subject to revision!

The second one, marked POST OFFICE TELEGRAMS with a Dover stamp top right is from LONDON Y OHMS and signed 'Proelicas' which I thought was the telegraphic address for the 'C2 Casualties' office. The LONDON Y part is new to me.

C2 Cas P131800 is a progress report originally from 35 GH in Calais. Progress reports are reserved for those Dangerously Ill.

So the origins are from 35 GH in Calais who had to keep the Deputy Adjutant General in Calais updated with the progress of the Dangerously Ill. Either the DAG or the AG in Abbeville then transmitted this information to C2 Casualties at the WO. Shame we don't have a copy of that telegraph.

The message to Mr John Salvage from the RGA Dover Office looks like a carbon copy that they retained, the top copy being used to copy out or be dictated as a PO Telegram.

This seems to translate IDEENLAND as Dangerously Ill but as you point out the permission to visit part is not included in the first telegram so I assume one of the other codes (TIFEVISIT?) would (translate as 'dangerously Ill permission to visit granted. I'm sure the permission to visit would stem from the Hospital under direction of the DDMS of the Calais Base. Normally I think permission to visit was reserved for those not expected to pull through although granting permission to visit may vary with busy/slack periods.

There are Progress Reports that mark individuals as 'Permission to visit granted/denied', these stem from bases in France.

Salvage's condition on these telegrams is NYD Arthritis which is 'Not Yet Diagnosed - Arthritis' which I'd normally take as appears to be arthritis but not defined as such yet. His condition evolved into Sub-Acute Rheumatism.

TNA have a MH106 register of Dangerously Ill Cases, MH106/775. This includes dates/numbers of the Progress Reports. SI=Slight Improvement, S=Satisfactory, NC=-No Change, D=Died.

If you had access to FMP you could trawl for service/pension records from this book to find more telegrams etc. Salvage is the first one I've seen for a British Soldier which at least means more should exist.

TNA also have medical sheets, some of these state;  Includes a medical case sheet and a Dangerously Ill notification. No idea how that notification is presented.

Going back to the meaning of the codes, still more guess work really but the Military way of things could be to report a Dangerously Ill case as ill, dangerous which gives you the ID part? The variations could be for SI=Slight Improvement, S=Satisfactory, NC=-No Change, D=Died.

TEW

 

[TEW]

Doesn't add much but a further look at Salvage's record shows he was on another progress report a week later as No longer seriously ill. He was evacuated to the UK and Eastbourne Hospital 18/8/18. He was on Casualty List HB 13611 admitted Eastbourne PSOAS Abscesses ???

He died 16/9/18 at the hospital of Necrosis of ilium, Pyaemia (blood poisoning). A little removed from Arthritis???

There are other telegrams in his record but none with any code.

TEW

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

12 hours ago, seaJane said:

I wonder if your local public library could organise an inter-library loan?

Sorry, SeaJane, I remember now that you did make this suggestion previously, and I decided that I would try writing to the British Library first. I will call into my local library and make enquiries, though it may have to wait a week or two. I will report back in due course (I will try to remember to do so this time!).

Thank you @TEW for your further input, especially clarification as to the origin and destination of the telegrams. Regarding another code such as TIFEVISIT being required to signal that there was permission to visit, I can see that that would make sense. The only thing is that normally TIFEVISIT is the only entry made on the day on which it is made in the 2 BRC records, i.e., you don't often get a code such as IDEENLAND meaning "dangerously ill" and TIFEVISIT on the same day. Coats in column 84 of my table is the only man for whom TIFEVISIT appears on the same day as another code (IDEIESMO). However, perhaps they first had to assess whether the man was likely to survive long enough for a visit, and/or would be up to a visit.

[TEW]

A TIFEVISIT telegraph example. I think these are fairly straight forward even if the TIFE is not understood.

 

Telegram as per last example it's from OHMS London Y to the Hamilton records office. This man was on a Seriously Ill list but is now on a Dangerously Ill list. The only relevant thing here is that again the two offices use or understand the term TIFEVISIT but the Hamilton office then telegraph the NOK to say; if you desire to visit him.....

NB. It does seem that the OC 7SH initiated the TIFEVISIT.

 

TEW

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 09/12/2022 at 14:21, TEW said:

A TIFEVISIT telegraph example. I think these are fairly straight forward even if the TIFE is not understood.

 

Telegram as per last example it's from OHMS London Y to the Hamilton records office. This man was on a Seriously Ill list but is now on a Dangerously Ill list. The only relevant thing here is that again the two offices use or understand the term TIFEVISIT but the Hamilton office then telegraph the NOK to say; if you desire to visit him.....

NB. It does seem that the OC 7SH initiated the TIFEVISIT.

Very interesting, Tew. You are right that we don't really know what TIFE means, but I still think that "Too ill for England" is quite likely.

Regarding Johnboy's suggestion about six posts ago, I wouldn't presume to know whether "immediate family" or "nok" would have been more in keeping with the parlance of the time, but it does seem that there was little "encouragement" to visit, just permission to visit at public expense.

[TEW]

I think earlier in the war NOK were turning up in France to visit their wounded family member. This caused all sorts of problems so the permission and permit system came into being.

It may be that permission to visit was granted when the man was not expected to survive.

I'm hoping to find EG. an IDELJACK telegram and see how the telegram to the NOK reads.

TEW

[Stuart T]

I've not been through the whole of both threads but find the subject and your treatment of it fascinating. Have you tried the RAMC Museum? They seem to be open daily.

[TEW]

Another two interesting telegrams but with no clear cut explanation. Telegram to NOK regarding the IDEENLAND Telegram.

His WO363 record is on Ancestry - see McA 4459/35021. I've looked through it and can't see much else that connects to these two other than he's Dangerously Ill in France and can't be visited.

TEW

 

 

 

 

 

[TEW]

Another IDEENLAND example.

IDEENLAND
First telegram 18/5/17 is to 'Attest Perth' IE. the Infantry Records Office which states that McArthur was admitted to 12 SH 16/5/17 with Appendicitis.

His B103 which matches the date shows his ailment is appendicitis mild. The telegram makes no mention of Dangerous or Serious illness or permission to visit.

 

Second Telegram from 12 SH dated 25/5/17 has no code but removes him from a dangerous list.

He was evacuated to EngLAND 3/6/17 but I can't see how they'd know that would be the case 18/5/17.

I did say I thought the ID part could be ill, dangerous but with this example his ailment is mild. Previous example for Macaleese suggests IDEENLAND equates to being Dangerously Ill. Nothing conclusive!! Perhaps all appendicitis cases are 'Dangerous'?

TEW

[Matlock1418]

1 hour ago, TEW said:

Perhaps all appendicitis cases are 'Dangerous'?

Though I'm not a medic - in pre-antibiotic days appendecitis would have indeed been 'dangerous', perhaps even 'very dangerous' if ruptured = leading to plenty of fatalities back then I seem to think.

M