How Do I Find the Right War Diary?

What to check first in this record

Find the war diary from the battalion or equivalent unit and the dates of posting, using the catalogue at The National Archives. Searching by surname will not find a war diary, because war diaries are catalogued by unit and date.

If a search starves you of results, drop one filter, not all of them. Dropping everything at once teaches you nothing about which filter was wrong. Whatever else you hold, hold the dates lightly until a record confirms them. Family dates are often a decade out, a year out, or attached to the wrong event.

Dead ends to expect here

Do not assume a gap means a gap in service. Records have gaps where filing had gaps, where sheets were lost, and where a period was recorded elsewhere. Where a record set is arranged by unit rather than by surname, a surname search alone will miss it. Mirror the catalogue structure, and the record set opens up.

Each dead end here is a normal research outcome, not a personal failure, and each one points to a next check rather than to a conclusion. If two records give the same person different numbers, do not pick one and discard the other. Numbers change on transfer, on re-enlistment, and on reorganisation.

How do you read what you find?

Do not read a unit diary as if it were written for you. It was written for the unit, in unit shorthand, and personal details appear only where the unit needed them. If the record uses initials instead of full names, match on the full set of filters, not on initials plus surname, because initials alone match too many people.

Do not let the most dramatic entry in a file set the story. The routine entries, postings, pay, movements, are what hold a timeline together. A summary page at the front of a file is a later compilation, and compilations introduce errors. Use it as a map, and verify its claims sheet by sheet.

How do you work through it step by step?

A step is finished when its finding is written down with a reference, not when the record has been read. Reading without writing is not research, it is browsing. If a step fails three times with three different filters, stop and change the record type. Persistence with one record type past three failures is rarely rewarded. If you are unsure which step comes first, choose the step that fixes a date. Dates order everything else, and an unfixed date disorders everything else. When a record contradicts your notes, change the notes, not the record, and keep a note of the change. Changed notes with no record of change are a second source of error.

1. Fix the battalion and the dates from the personal file before opening any diary.
2. Open the battalion diary for those dates, and note its reference.
3. Read entries day by day around the dates that matter, including appendices and maps.
4. Move to brigade or division diaries only where the battalion diary is thin or missing.

As an illustration only, suppose a diary entry names a village but no battalion strength return survives for that week: the entry still fixes the unit place and date, and the personal file is what ties your person to that place and date.

The next record in the chain

The next step is usually a record that answers one specific thing: a date, a unit, a place, or a name, rather than a whole new area of research. If the next record is a unit record, carry the posting dates with you. If it is a personal record, carry the number. The filter you carry decides what you find.

If this guide answered the question you brought to it, the next guide should start from a new question, not from the momentum of this one. Research done slowly, with references, outlasts research done quickly, with enthusiasm. Choose the slower kind.