Could someone explain why the time has been recorded in different formats in this war diary entry. http://www.thewardrobe.org.uk/research/war-diaries/detail/19757 Thanks in advance.
http://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/b Bravo Time Zone (Military Time) is 2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
1802 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_time_zones From: Allied Communications Publication (ACP) 121 - current incarnation: http://jcs.dtic.mil/j6/cceb/acps/ "207. The requirements for military communications rapidly expanded throughout World War II. Consequently, it was considered essential to further develop communications systems in order to achieve successful co-ordination, command and control of a global war. The requirements for compatible equipment and procedures with Allied Forces were necessary to achieve a more efficient C2 system."
Does anyone have the original diary entry to compare? Could this have been an error introduced when the diary was being transcribed, ie might it read 0630 0730 0830 I transcribe onto a spreadsheet and if I'm not careful it autocorrects my times.
I have a copy of the original, the only time that would appear to have been transcribed incorrectly is 0070230B which should read 070230B.
Are we all clear that the red 'times' are actually day/time entries, i.e. 080230B is 0230hrs GMT+2 or BDST (British Double Summer Time) on the 8th of the month? It was a convention that helps clarify the events of night ops. Time zone aside, I've used it as-is in Excel but you need to format the cells as text to keep the leading zeros. The default time format bugs me because it insists on the colon.
Phew! I was concerned I was stating the bleedin' obvious. It makes more sense that they've used it in the context of a later report, rather than a diary entry per se.
Nicks. The way it works, and is still used in the armed forces today is called DTG - Date, Time, Group. If the time is shown as 070230B Apr 15, this would mean 0230 on Bravo time on 07 Apr 15. Bravo time is two hours ahead of GMT. Regards Frank