Interpreting war diary locations (KOYLI)

[Richman]

Hi

I've been reading the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) war diaries and want to identify some of the locations within. They seem to have been recorded as slightly non standard and no online tool I've used can resolve them properly. The coordinates in question are (as recorded in the diaries);

• S.27.b.05.50
• S.27.a.0.7
• S.27.d.00.75

The NLS.UK trench mapper for example does not respond to this format, but will if I enter for example 27.S which is not the correct location.

I'm a bit confused - any help would be appreciated!

Rich

 

 

[Michelle Young]

Welcome to the forum. Hopefully @WhiteStarLine and or @Howard will be along soon. Do the diaries give any general locations as well as the map references? 

[Richman]

Hi Michelle and thanks for the welcome. The diaries mention places like Boiry Saint Martin, Moyenneville, and Adinfer. All just tiny villages, and I think some distance away from the trenches. Other than that the location is just referenced as 'in the line'... but I guess the villages are the approximate area

[Howard]

34 minutes ago, Richman said:

Hi

I've been reading the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) war diaries and want to identify some of the locations within. They seem to have been recorded as slightly non standard and no online tool I've used can resolve them properly. The coordinates in question are (as recorded in the diaries);

• S.27.b.05.50
• S.27.a.0.7
• S.27.d.00.75

The NLS.UK trench mapper for example does not respond to this format, but will if I enter for example 27.S which is not the correct location.

I'm a bit confused - any help would be appreciated!

Rich

 

 

These references are fine except they lack the sheet number. As they stand, those will repeat for every 1:40,000 main sheet. So if they were near Ypres, the first one would be

28.S.27.b.05.50 .

To find the sheet numbers, if you add the attached to Google Earth, every sheet is shown, even those for which no maps were drawn.

Howard

Great War Grid GM complete.kmz Great War 40k sheet numbers.kml

[WhiteStarLine]

17 minutes ago, Richman said:

Boiry Saint Martin, Moyenneville, and Adinfer

If you go to TrenchMapper and type in some of these place names you get Sheet 51b, which is the missing bit of your puzzle.  Lots of trenches there, depending on the specific date you are interested in.  The locations are just NW of Moyenneville.  A minor complication is you are right on the southern extreme of Sheet 51b so some other parts of the war diary might reference Sheet 57c.