Normandy here I come / 1/6th Queens Royal West Surrey Regt

It’s been some time in the making and if to be honest
The idea has been floating around in my head for years,
But this year my wife is making my dreams and ideas
A reality for my 40th, so were now planning a trip to
Retrace the footsteps my Granddad took in June/July
1944. I intend to use this thread tell the story of my journey
From the planning to the trip itself.

My first port of call was a trip to the National Archives to
Take copies of the 1/6th Queens Royal West Regt diaries
From May 44 to July 44, Idler a forum member had already
kindly sent me the diary for June 44.

A word of advice before visiting the Archives, find out if
The documents you want to look at are available to view on
The day, this was nearly a very costly mistake I made
And if weren’t for a very helpful member of staff at the archives
My visit would have been a complete waste of time. Documents
At Kew can be unavailable for hours, days, weeks and months,
Mine was booked out for copying and was not going to be released
until the 7th June.

So I now have my diaries which will make my trip even more
Interesting. My Granddad was severely wounded on the 25/26th
July and the entry reads for those days.

Below are digital images of the diary entries for those days, at 0800
Hours on the 26th July the regiment sustained several casualties

 

There are so many questions I would like answering
while reading these entries and I am hoping that
forum veterans/members will be able to help.

WW2 map references/co-ordinates how do they
differ from todays and are we able to take them
from the entries and make sense of them?

Has anyone ever come across Beauvoir and
Troteval Farms, I did a google search and
came across a gaming website that had some
layouts of the farms, so I am guessing research
has been done...are they still there?

Many more questions to come

Cheers Guys

 

For grid reference:

The "Coordinates Translator"

One thing I have learned when using it for 1940 research try and cross ref it as some of the grid references stated in records were wrong. If you have more than one source it helps to narrow the location down.

Good luck !

Cheers
Andy

 

Cheers Owen/Drew hopefully that will make life
a little easier never seen that before, so is it
pretty accurate?

 

Just had a quick look at that convertor and to be honest
the last bit of map reading I did was when I spent a week
at Blackdown Barracks with the Youth Club lol. I have some
four didgit and some six digit references with no letters in
front of them, so how does that work, am I being completely
stupid....???? Dont answer that

 

Keiron,

Map references: there's the easy way or the cheap way.

For the latter, search here for 'coordinates translator'. It's not quite intuitive but gets the job done via GoogleEarth or similar.

The 'easy way' requires money and a willingness to grapple with a bit of French. IGN - Institute Geographique Nationale, the French OS - do, or did, some mapping CD/DVDs. I have the Calvados (14) Ouest edition (no good for Ifs) of the Carto Exploreur 3. Basically it's a searchable system based on the IGN 1:25000 maps, so ut's quite detailed. The best thing is that there are alternative grids - switch in Lambert I and you have the system that was used on the GSGS maps. I don't know if this feature is on any of their other ranges.

Pros: Lambert I grid, does have a facility for 'pushpins', decently detailed maps, can print extracts.

Cons: it's not cheap (though is competitive with buying paper maps), French interface, was a pig to get to work under Vista (but OK with XP), extracts can printed.
Other IGN ranges include aerial photo DVDs but, again, not sure if they also include the maps and alternatve grids.

For a single trip, though, I'd probably persevere with coordinates translator as you probably don't have too many grid refs to deal with.

As I'm typing, I'm sure Drew is putting a link up for the coordinates translator so I will be lazy and let him...

 

Here's a link for IGN CartoExploreur. It puts OS to shame, really. This is CartoExploreur 1:25000.

 

Cheers Idler Drew and Owen have posted up the link for the
translator but I am having a little trouble using it to be honest, as
I said previously I have 4 - 6 digit co ordinates but the translator
informs me that I am entering a incorrect format and gives me
examples that have letters before the numbers, should have
paid more attention at school...lol

 

The difficult bit is finding out the 'letter code' to put in before the grid ref. I've never worked that out and Rob and Idler helped me out with that bit for the area I was looking at.

A

 

Breakfast beckons but I think you have to include a reference for the actual map sheet/grid as well as the bit of the grid reference you have. I'm sure one of the threads here had a walkthrough. Sorry I can't be more help at the mo...

 

Cheers Idler Drew and Owen have posted up the link for the
translator but I am having a little trouble using it to be honest, as
I said previously I have 4 - 6 digit co ordinates but the translator
informs me that I am entering a incorrect format and gives me
examples that have letters before the numbers, should have
paid more attention at school...lol

There are some notes on the Cassini system on my website: Military Maps

These may clear up a few queries regarding the letters and why you need them.

As for 4-digit refs, the only way to 'convert' them is to visually compare wartime and modern maps; a 4 fig ref is a 1km square, so no great accuracy anyhow.

These converters usually need the letters followed by 6 figs for the formula to work, but don't expect great accuracy from a converted ref. for various reasons; a few more notes at another of my webpages: Concrete Evidence Database

I used the published formula and knocked up my own auto-converter, but it's specifically tweaked for East Sussex to make it more accurate.

I've recently been directed to another converter: FieldenMaps.info / Co-ordinate Converter / Great Britain - I've not actually used it yet, but it looks quite handy.

I have absolutely no knowledge of the map sheets used outside the UK, but a way in might be to at least get the map sheet nos. from a war diary and look to see if the British Library has an index of sheets (they should hold copies of all OS maps). You might find maps at Bde/Div/Corps level in the TNA files - this is the case for UK Home Forces files, which are the limit of my experience.

UK Cassini maps are held at TNA in ZOS 3 - I've no idea if those of other theatres are also held.

- Pete

 

All this information is excellant guys, I really do a
appreciate the pointers and help. Owen the Ifs
co ordinates that you have translated seem to
match the google map or should I say the area.
In the diary it has co ordinates for road junctions
around Villers Bocage and Road names which I
think will give me a better idea to whether or not
the translator is accurate. Thanks again eveyone.

ps. gaspirator many thanks for you explanation

 

Keiron,
When I first saw you post I thought the diary names sounded quite local to the Villers Bocage area but I couldn't say for sure, the names of so many small villages and hamlets have many similar prefixes.
If the area appears to be narrowed down to the Villers Bocage area there are places such as Fontenay Le Pesnel (Tilly Sur Seulles to Villers Bocage road). Fontenay seems to be the base of the name for several hamlets in that area.
Anything which mentions 'Sur Seulles' is a dead give away as it is a small river in Normandy very close to the west of Villers Bocage.
That whole area was the scene of bitter fighting in June/July 44 against Waffen SS and armoured regiments (Wittman in Villers Bocage is the most famous example) but the whole area must have seen weeks of combat, Tilly Sur Seulles was notorious for having changed hands so many times.
That is my best guess, don't have a French road map to hand, but hope that helps a little.

Mike

 

Cheers Mike, from what I can work out and I could be
completely wrong I dont think the 1/6th Bn entered
Villers Bocage in the date range I am looking at. I wish
I had picked up a reproduction map of Normandy 1944
from the National Archives shop now when I went there
Thursday, I guess they must have a shop online.
Cheers again for your help Mike.

 

I have had a good weekend reading through
the diaries for my granddads regiment and
with the links and information forum members
have given me I am starting to get a real feel
for the area he spent his last few days before
he was fatally wounded. When I last visisted
my Uncle he told that my Nan his Mum told
that the injuries my Granddad recieved were
terriable, he had lost the majority of his
lower part of his body (legs), sorry to be so
graphic. When reading the diaries the entry
states that the casualties for that day were
caused by "Nebelwerfer Fire", I did a search
on U tube to see if there was any footage
and to my surprise I found some. If this was
the case and my Granddads injuries were
caused by such a weapon I can now
understand the extent of his injuries and
feel saddened.

Nebelwerfer battery
YouTube - Nebelwerfer-Batterie France 1944

 

Keiron,
After some advice from Owen looked on Google maps.

Google Maps

Zoom in on Caen area then keep zooming to Villers Bocage and area NW of there. You should get down to local roads and hamlet names. Seems a bit slow to load but you might find your target areas there.
The nebelwerfer was a fearsome weapon, also known as 'the moaning minnie', and if correctly targetted was devastating. The footage on your You tube link is very low trajectory. It was more often (I think) used as rocket propelled mortars in the 'indirect' fire mode.
Developments of this weapon are still in current use.
Good luck for your trip.

Mike