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

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 11/12/2022 at 11:51, TEW said:

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

I think this must often have been the case, but examination of my table suggests that permission to visit did not require a man to be close to death or even "more likely to die than not". I think that most men whose relatives were given permission to visit would have been classed as "dangerously ill", so at least at risk of dying, but not necessarily expected to die. I say this because by far the majority of the men in my table who are coded TIFEVIST did not die; however, with only three exceptions, all the men in the table who died were previously coded TIFEVISIT. The three exceptions are in columns 83, 85 and 90, and in each of these cases the "died" entry is preceded by IDEENLAND. It may or may not be significant that in two of the examples of telegrams to the NOK that you have found which follow on from IDEENLAND include a statement that visiting is not allowed (Salvage and Macaleese).

I suspect that the decision as to whether to issue permission to visit might have depended on several things, not just how likely a man was to die, but also how prolonged the stay in hospital in France might be, also, possibly, whether the soldier wanted to be visited or not.

 

On 12/12/2022 at 15:52, TEW said:

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.

It is interesting that the telegram which you have placed in the middle of the three relating to Macaleese also contains the word IDEEPAW, which you will recall I think means that a man was over the worst, if not quite off the dangerously ill list. I think that this telegram is the last of the three in time, but sadly we do not appear to have the telegram which was sent to the NOK translating IDEEPAW.

 

On 13/12/2022 at 16:56, TEW said:

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.

The last of the three telegrams which you have posted regarding McArthur, which I think is the last in time, being dated 25 May 1917, states "Remove from dangerously ill list", so clearly at some time before 25 May McArthur was placed on the dangerously ill list, even though his appendicitis was "mild" as at 16 May 1917. I think your surmise, supported by Matlock, that all appendicitis, even a mild case, might be regarded as dangerous, is persuasive. 

It is perhaps surprising that "Remove from the dangerously ill list" was not written in code in that telegram, which I believe was between two war offices, so one might have thought that IDEISABATE would have fitted the bill.

Edited 14 December , 2022 by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 11/12/2022 at 11:56, Stuart T said:

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.

In my enthusiasm for looking at Tew's further telegrams I omitted to reply to Stuart T's contribution. Thank you Stuart, it is good to see that other people are interested in this quest too, and it will do no harm to give the RAMC museum a ring. They may be unwilling to engage unless I commit to paying their research fees, and I also suspect that this is more of a signals/adminstration question than an RAMC one, but you never know ...

If I find anything out I will post on the thread.

[Stuart T]

Good luck then.

[TEW]

IDEENLAND & IDEENRENG

Another example batch of telegrams between C2:Casualties/Kingsway and RGA records Dover and the NOK. This one is slightly murky as there is correspondence regarding the ID or Address of the NOK. The wife, Bessie is recorded with Dover records as being in Putney (on the B103) she has actually moved to Castle Cary and Kingsway want clarification (can you trace) that they have the right details.

I also wonder when finding these telegrams in a service record whether the whole picture is presented or if other telegrams are missing.

This man Coleman was admitted wounded 15/10/17, RGA Dover created that entry 20/10/17 but C2;Casualties had that information 16/10/17 so we may be missing something here.

I think it's relevant that the P lists referred should automatically infer that a Dangerous or Serious condition is being reported. The Sick/Wounded Lists topic now has 874 such P (Progress Reports) found in service files which must have been sent to the records offices by C2:Casualties. Perhaps these telegrams are additional to the actual P List sent to expedite information.

Anyway, telegram #1 from C2:Casualties/Kingsway to Dover RGA records using IDEENLAND.

 

Then a transcript of a telegram sent to the NOK from Dover records which I'm reading as a translation of IDEENLAND into dangerously Ill.

 

Then another transcription of a telegram from Kingsway-RGA Dover mentioning IDEENRENG. NB. this is extracted from another P list.

 

A copy of his B103 shows his admission 'Gassed'. Although I can't make out the whole entry below it does seem to say Invalided which would be standard stuff for Invalided to England Per Hospital Ship XXX.

 

FindMyPast have some stray sheets for this man which could be the P lists referred to, I don't have access at present. The ongoing P lists should be an initial list then updates to condition IE. Worse, Slight Improvement, No Change, Satisfactory or Dead.

TEW

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Thank you very much, @TEW, for these further examples.

I am sure that you will have noticed that in the new IDEENLAND case the second telegram (which I think I am correct in believing was addressed to the wife) includes the words "Regret that permission to visit cannot be granted", similar to two of the other examples that you found earlier. I am therefore starting to think that it may be becoming more likely that "IDEENLAND" may be a portmanteau word meaning not only "Dangerously Ill", but also "No permission to visit".

With regard to IDEENRENG, you will recall that in my first post on this thread I quoted an earlier post in which I had said that IDEENRENG seemed to be translated as "Transferred Dangerously Ill to England" on its first appearance in the WD in February 1917 (fourth para of the first section in italics in the post). Is it possible that IDEENRENG might also mean this in the case of Coleman? Are there any other documents available in his records that might suggest that this was the case? 

[TEW]

I have wondered if these codes have a doubled up meaning as you suggest. I think the Coleman telegrams reiterates the same information for previous ones for Salvage.

Although it may be that the absence of TIFEVISIT alongside IDEENLAND automatically means visiting is not permitted.

I agree that IDEENRENG relates to a transfer to England. For Coleman I don't think there's anything further in his records beyond the B103 but I can't see any other reason for the word Invalided. I'll double check.

I have an IDEEPAW example telegram for tomorrow which may have an annotated translation!

TEW

 

[Stuart T]

Whatever these all mean, I wonder what the format relates to and signifies. I mean, they're not straightforward abbreviations, so would it help to try to understand the format, rather than looking directly for a translation?

[TEW]

That was another point I was going to raise.

TIFEVISIT refers to a visit.

IDEENRENG is a transfer to England.

But, IDEENLAND equates to being Dangerously Ill, possibly without a visit.

Why not follow suit and have IDEENDANG?

IDEEPAW does not appear to follow the pattern for IDEENRENG, paw is not an abbreviation.

TEW

 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

5 hours ago, TEW said:

Although it may be that the absence of TIFEVISIT alongside IDEENLAND automatically means visiting is not permitted.

I agree. but, on the other hand, there is also the codeword IDEIESMO, which may possibly mean "Dangerously ill, but no decision has yet been taken on whether permission to visit can be granted", meaning that there would be three distinct categories of visitability (if that is a word!) when a man's life-threatening illness was first reported, i.e., can be visited, can't be visited, and no decision yet made; if so, it would not be the case that IDEENLAND would be redundant on the grounds that "no permission to visit" would apply to all those to whom TIFEVISIT did not apply. 

Consideration of my table at the beginning of this thread suggests that with one exception every single man had the opening entry of either IDEIESMO, IDEENLAND or TIFEVISIT. The one exception is Lieutenant Pentland, Column 19, whose first entry is IDEEPAW, which I am fairly certain (subject to @TEW's anticipated post about this tomorrow) can only refer to a man who is improving from a previous status of being in danger, so that either I must have missed a previous entry in respect of Lieutenant Pentland, or possibly No 2 BRC inadvertently omitted an earlier entry, or possibly he was admitted prior to the period which I looked at.

It is quite common for IDEIESMO to be followed a few days, or even a day, later by TIFEVISIT, which would be understandable if the former meant simply "no decision yet taken". I can see only two examples of IDEIESMO being followed by IDEENLAND, Columns 80 and 95, Captain Talbot Bowe and Lieutenant Garrett, both of whom died the day after the IDEENLAND entry. Sometimes neither IDEENLAND nor TIFEVISIT follows IDEIESMO, which perhaps would mean that it was up to the relatives to request permission to visit if they wanted this.

I can also see two examples of IDEENLAND followed by TIFEVISIT, Columns 30 and 75, 2nd Lieutenant Lebas and Lieutenant Harkness. I suppose that it is not impossible that a decision that no visit was permitted might be replaced by a decision that a visit could be permitted after all.

I am very excited for the example of IDEEPAW promised for tomorrow!

Edited 25 January , 2023 by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

4 hours ago, TEW said:

That was another point I was going to raise.

TIFEVISIT refers to a visit.

IDEENRENG is a transfer to England.

But, IDEENLAND equates to being Dangerously Ill, possibly without a visit.

Why not follow suit and have IDEENDANG?

IDEEPAW does not appear to follow the pattern for IDEENRENG, paw is not an abbreviation.

TEW

Apologies, I posted my last post without being aware of @Stuart T's contribution or @TEW's further response. I agree that one would expect there to be a little bit of logic and consistency as to how the codewords were chosen, not least because this would make it a lot easier for those receiving the codes to remember what they meant. I think that at least the IDE part must mean the same each time it appears, and probably includes the "dangerously ill" bit; it has to be noted that IDIERCAT does not have "IDE" in it, so perhaps only the "ID" bit is standard for all these as meaning "dangerously ill", and the additional "E" and what follows means something else.

You would also expect that IDEEN would mean the same each time it appears. There may be a reason why the "N" was not appropriate or needed for IDEEPAW.

I'm sure that I remember someone on here posting that you shouldn't expect the codes to be too logical, so it could be that there might be a combination of acronyms and abbreviations, also I remember reading that codemakers liked playing with latin. Proelicas as the telegraphic address for the War Department dealing with casualties is a good example of what the mindset of someone deciding on a code might be, as I understand that this comes from Proelium, the latin for battle, and an abbreviation of the word "casualty".

For what it is worth, I have had a further thought that the "PAW" bit of IDEEPAW might mean "Past the worst". Maybe we will find out one day. As I say, I am excited to see the further example of IDEEPAW tomorrow.

Edited 25 January , 2023 by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy

[JMB1943]

5 hours ago, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

Thank you very much, @TEW, for these further examples.

I am sure that you will have noticed that in the new IDEENLAND case the second telegram (which I think I am correct in believing was addressed to the wife) includes the words "Regret that permission to visit cannot be granted", similar to two of the other examples that you found earlier. I am therefore starting to think that it may be becoming more likely that "IDEENLAND" may be a portmanteau word meaning not only "Dangerously Ill", but also "No permission to visit".

Tricia,

I assure you that Stuart is not the only one following this thread with great interest!

What would/could be the rationale to deny permission to wife, or other family members, to visit a "dangerously ill" man, who is obviously on the fine line between life and death?

This is especially puzzling, given that visits to many other badly-wounded men are recorded.

Possibly the physical appearance of the gas-poisoned victim would prove too upsetting for visitors.

Several university departments exist in the UK for War Studies, e.g., Kings College, London, Wolverhampton, Birmingham (?) which may have details of these hospital codes; possibly KCL could send a grad student over to the BL to check that book, if you are unable to obtain it via inter-library loan.

You and TEW have worked wonders on this thread, and I'm looking forward to the next post. 

Regards,

JMB

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

34 minutes ago, JMB1943 said:

Tricia,

I assure you that Stuart is not the only one following this thread with great interest!

I'm glad that other people are as intrigued as I am about solving this puzzle!

Regarding the document at BL, I raised an enquiry with BL on 13 January as to whether it would be possible to send the document to a library near me, but have not had a reply as yet. I will leave it a little longer before I chase. Having said that, if anyone on this forum is either themselves in a position to arrange for a student to go to the BL to look at the document or knows anyone else who is able to do that, that would be great. Even better if anyone was in a position to look at the 1916 in the Australian Memorial Library ...

Regarding the reasons why permission to visit might be refused, I profess absolutely no specialist knowledge regarding this, but I suppose that it may have been reasonable to refuse permission to visit if the man himself had said that he did not want to be visited, or the medical staff were certain that the man would not survive long enough for anyone to get to his bedside before he died. Might permission to visit also have been refused if the patient was unconscious and not expected to regain consciousness even though we would not now regard that as a legitimate reason for not allowing relatives to visit? And yes, I did also consider the possibility that the authorities might have wanted to spare the relatives the horror of seeing the worst kinds of injury, though again, we would not now consider that that was a decision for the authorities rather than for the patient and his relatives.

[Stuart T]

With regard to the archives, each should have a list of recommended professional researchers but to avoid cost, how about approaching a family history (or even general history) society local to the area to see whether they have any volunteers willing to do the look-ups?

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

14 hours ago, JMB1943 said:

What would/could be the rationale to deny permission to wife, or other family members, to visit a "dangerously ill" man, who is obviously on the fine line between life and death?

As an addendum to my last post, I had noted earlier in this thread (12 October 2021) that IDEENLAND seemed often to be applied to men who were from Canada, Australia or New Zealand (6 of the 9 examples cited in my tables).

That has set me wondering what the arrangements might have been for a relative visiting a hospital in France from one of these countries. It would have been more expensive, as well as potentially more dangerous, for relatives to visit from these countries. Would the army have been prepared to sanction - and pay for - such visits?

I have had a look through the attachment to my first post on this thread, and not one of the TIFEVISITS listed there was for a man from a Canadian, Australian or New Zealand unit.

Yet IDEENLAND is not applied to every officer from Australian, Canadian or New Zealand units, which, if IDEENLAND does include the information that a decision had been taken that permission to visit could not be given, might suggest that in some circumstances permission might have been given for relatives of officers in such units to visit. Having said that, many officers in those units would have had NOK in Britain. My maternal grandfather emigrated to Canada in 1909 and joined the Canadian CEF when war broke out, but, as he was unmarried,  his papers naturally give his NOK as his mother in Britain.

1 hour ago, Stuart T said:

With regard to the archives, each should have a list of recommended professional researchers but to avoid cost, how about approaching a family history (or even general history) society local to the area to see whether they have any volunteers willing to do the look-ups?

Thank you for this suggestion, Stuart. I also still have your earlier suggestion about the RAMC Museum to follow up.

[TEW]

A little more on Coleman's record.

Artillery records seem to like to add details to an Army Form B104-53 Inside Sheet as well as the B103. Not sure why they only have these entries but perhaps it's down to missing sheets.

They have two entries for this event, first is for the IDEENRENG entry telegram which is the final telegram in the Coleman sequence. Right hand column has NOK informed 24/10/17, we don't have this NOK telegram.

 

Second entry I'd say confirms his arrival in the UK, it suggests to me he was admitted to MH Whalley, Lancs 23/10/17 as reported on WO Casualty List HB 8525. I've checked the spreadsheet for HB lists and it must date to between 20th-27th Oct.

I'd say the IDEENRENG information came from 22 General Hospital, Camiers 23/10/17 once they had him marked down or on his way to a Hospital Ship. It is possible to leave Camiers and arrive in Lancashire the same day depending on tides, trains etc.

TEW

[TEW]

IDEENLAND & IDEEPAW.

Just noticed that the relevant telegram actually has IDEENPAW

It seems I built this up into something more exciting than it is and I think Tricia has deduced this anyway. However, an example is always good. I only held back as I'd only just downloaded these and wanted to crop, straighten, resize and correctly sequence them.

They are set out in pairs, from Kingsway to Warley Records and then Warley to NOK. First one is another IDEENLAND, much the same as for Salvage and Coleman.

 

Then the IDEENPAW telegrams.

Note that on arrival at the Warley office someone has put an x next to IDEENPAW and annotated the meaning bottom left, slightly damaged but compare with the NOK telegram the first telegram has Formerly Dangerously now Seriously Ill.

TEW

[TEW]

Just to show inconsistency in these telegrams from Kingsway-Warley in April/May 1916. They simply don't bother with IDEENLAND or IDEENPAW.

TEW

[Stuart T]

Maybe not exciting but well worth logging in the table of comparisons. Inconsistency may also become relevant!

Btw, might that be a Chester from Loddington, near Kettering?

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Thank you @TEW, that's brilliant.

First of all, it is interesting to see that the "translation" of IDEENLAND once again appears to include the information that no visitors are allowed.

Secondly, I had deduced that IDEEPAW indicated a measure of improvement, but it is nice to see it spelled out that it was from dangerously ill to seriously ill.

Interesting too, to see that in the telegram IDEEPAW appears as IDEENPAW, so someone else clearly thought that there should be consistency in these code words. I have checked back to the original 2 BRC WD, and it is definitely IDEEPAW there, time and time again.

As I mentioned in the OP there is just one occasion where IDEENLAND is written IDELAND, maybe because the author was lured into trying to make it consistent with IDEIESMO and IDEISABATE.

By the way, in relation to IDEISABATE, I might venture a guess at "Ill Dangerously and Ill Seriously Abated". Not sure what the "E" woud be though, unless standing for the latin word for and, i.e. "et". It would be good to find an IDEISABATE translated, also IDEIESMO, but what you have found so far is excellent.

Thank you also for the additional information about Coleman, which does seem to confirm the meaning of IDEENRENG, even though we don't know exactly what the "EENR" in particular signifies. By the way, apologies that I had missed the sentence in the middle of your first post about Coleman when you said that you could make out the word "invalided" and guessed that it meant "invalided to England", which does now seem very likely indeed in view of the other documents that you have found.

If "IDEEN" didn't appear in some of the other words you might think the "ENR" in IDEENRENG meant "en route for", but, if so, "IDEEN" in IDEENRENG would have to mean something different to "IDEEN" in IDEENLAND and possibly also in IDEENTRANS.

It did cross my mind, even before I saw the last three telegrams where codes are not bothered with, which all contain the words "inform relatives", that the "EN" could be a specific instruction to pass information to the NOK, but you would have thought that all the developments represented by the codes should be communicated to the NOK. TIFEVISIT would certainly have to be, though maybe that was so obvious it didn't need a specific instruction. Maybe also, once the man was getting better, he could be expected to communicate with the NOK himself, so there might be less urgency? But, having said that, I do see that in the last two telegrams above that include an instruction to inform the relatives, the news is that Chester was getting better, so effectively IDEEPAW, so that, if I was right about the "EN", you would indeed expect the code to be IDEENPAW, as written in the Saville case. Maybe someone didn't like the sound of IDEENPAW, as "P" doesn't often follow "N" in English, and therefore simply left it out? But I realise that this is all pure speculation, so I will stop rambling!

[TEW]

All the telegrams so far are quoting Progress Reports, EG. P87078 & P88320 for Coleman. The same information as to changes in condition are recorded on the PR which would also be sent to each records office. I think the telegrams are either speeding the process up for information to be sent to NOK prior to Kingsway sending out the PR a few days later.

Chester's 2nd telegram has an annotation saying Notified to n of kin from progress report 4/5/16. Shame the telegram date is obscured but I think for admin purposes in this case Warley are quoting the PR rather than the telegram when informing the NOK.

The example for Salvage, the telegram to the NOK quotes the telegram number from Kingsway IE. B6380.

@Stuart T Had to back track on Chester, born in Greatworth, moved to Wappenham then Stratford on Avon in 1920.

I realise that for Chester his telegrams are 1916 and the codes seem to start being used in Feb 1917. I've been looking at batches of the full progress reports and for mid-1916 the conditions described are verbose and quite varied, they also use Dangerously Ill, Dangerously Sick, Dangerously Wounded and then repeat those three for Seriously Ill etc. By mid-1917 the conditions are much more standardised and less verbose.

With information to date I've attached extracts from 1917 PRs and annotated them with what I think corresponding telegrams would say, not to be taken as gospel (work in progress).

I'm still unsure as to the relationship between a Dangerous list and a Serious List and whether EG, Seriously Ill- Transferred to England would be the same as for a Dangerous case.

Finding telegrams in service files for British troops in WO363 that match up to PR entries is almost impossible.

For colonials it should be much easier although we have to hope the codes are the same. It's also possible that the codes shown in the 2 BRC Hospital diary are not the complete set, perhaps there are IDEE**** codes for unusual circumstances not encountered at 2 BRC?

As to meanings, I'll sit on the fence for some of these. If they're codes then there's no reason to see them as acronyms or abbreviations. Codewords could easily be obfuscated with garbage characters, perhaps every other character is garbage. Perhaps a Latin acronym was created and then garbage characters inserted? Perhaps some are entirely made up strings of characters.

Once these were in use and commonplace place a clerk in a records office doesn't have to understand the devious origins of why IDEENPAW translates as Formerly Dangerously now Seriously Ill, it just does.

TEW

 

[Stuart T]

Not sure why TEW thinks colonials will be easier. I've looked at a few Canadians, including one who went round several UK hospitals, deteriorating as he went and not yet found a single telegram.

Btw, how did you manage to put my name in the middle of your text? 

[TEW]

Stuart,

Colonial record offices were much more efficient than the British versions, they didn't get bombed by the Luftwaffe and they kept a lot more paperwork and I have seen an IDEENLAND telegram in a colonial's file.

To alert or 'tag' someone that way type @s and you'll see a pop up box with yourself second down, that then pings an alert to the member.

TEW

 

 

[Stuart T]

@TEW Thanks!

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 27/01/2023 at 15:07, TEW said:

Once these were in use and commonplace place a clerk in a records office doesn't have to understand the devious origins of why IDEENPAW translates as Formerly Dangerously now Seriously Ill, it just does.

I'm sure that you are right about this, Tew. By means of the translations that you have found, I think that we have more or less cracked IDEENLAND, IDEENRENG and IDEEPAW, and can make a reasonable stab at IDEISABATE, TIFEVISIT and IDEIESMO, though there may be nuances with these three that we aren't yet aware of. I am about to be away for a couple of weeks - I will probably return to find that you have cracked IDELJACK and IDIERCAT too!

 

 

Edited 19 February , 2023 by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy
To delete reference to Taylor (dealt with on another thread)

[TEW]

Brian's post regarding Taylor (the other topic) reminded me about these codes and some work I've been running through on AIF, NZ & Canadian officers with codes in the 2 BRC diary.

I thought I'd lost a lot of downloads but just found them with odd file extensions so will get back to those and see what I can match up.

In the meantime there is an additional code that's not been mentioned before.

IDEENLANOP

I've only seen one instance of this for two officers dated 14/5/1917.
Capt. Badcock is recorded with Amp Foot and Lt. Barnes gives has no further details. Amputated Foot would logically match up with an OP code but for Barnes things are a bit more complex. He was injured 9/4/17 and his leg amputated the same day (at CCS), as as far as I can see he had no further operations in France. The IDEENLANOP code seems to be applied the day before he was evacuated to the UK although it looks like he was on a DI list from 9/4/17 while at CCS. I can't see anything that takes him off a DI list or downgrades him to a Seriously Ill list.

There is some unusual correspondence in his file which suggests they had little information on Barnes and telegrammed his NOK stating they had received news that he had been wounded but state that his wounding is not reported as being of a serious nature so therefore things must be favourable. They add that it's the usual practise of overseas authorities to advise the department should such cases develop serious or dangerous symptoms.

They don't seem to be aware of his Dangerous condition for about eleven days.

Unfortunately I can't find a service record for Badcock.

TEW