War Diaries through Heritage Canadiana

Discussion in 'Canadian' started by sapperschild, Aug 9, 2014.

  1. JohnS

    JohnS Senior Member

    Good stuff!
     
  2. horsapilot

    horsapilot Member

    Good job !
    Any idea if RCAF documents are also available ?
    Especially the 6 RCAF Bomber Group 1jan1943-8may1945 (HQ) ?
    Thanks
     
  3. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    There are no RCAF diaries at Heritage Canadiana. Sorry.
     
  4. Cee

    Cee Senior Member Patron

    dryan,

    There are RCAF Orbs and BCATP records at Heritage Canadiana. I'm not sure how complete they are? See here:

    6 RCAF Bomber Group

    Regards ...
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2017
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  5. JohnS

    JohnS Senior Member

    When is the next update?
     
  6. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    I apologize regarding the RCAF war diaries. I was not familiar with that area of Heritage Canadiana.

    Regarding updates, I am not sure if there will be any more for the Canadian Army war diaries. Since they are based on microfilm reels, I think that all the microfilm reels have been posted. For example, the majority of the infantry battalions that served do not exist on microfilm reels. This is the case for other units such as RCASC, RCAMC, training centres, etc.

    If you are not sure use the LAC search engine to see if a microfilm reel exists. For example, here is the entry for one of the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade volumes:

    601 Reference: RG24 , National Defence , Series C-3 , Volume 14129 , Reel T-12015
    Serial : 730 , Access code: 90
    File Title: Headquarters, 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade
    Outside Dates: 1944/07
    Finding Aid number: 24-60

    Notice that a Reel number is listed.

    While here is a listing for a RCAMC unit:

    3602 Reference: RG24 , National Defence , Series C-3 , Volume 15944
    Serial : 483 , Access code: 90
    File Title: No. 2 Field Transfusion Unit, Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps
    Outside Dates: 1943/02-1945/04
    Finding Aid number: 24-60

    Notice that no Reel number is listed.

    Here is the link for searching the LAC archives.

    Archives Search—Advanced - Library and Archives Canada
     
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  7. JohnS

    JohnS Senior Member

    Since it has been over a year since anything has been posted it seems that there won't be anymore. Too bad since not all of the RCE files are online. However, since you stated that they are only doing the microfilms then they seem to be finished with this task. Mission accomplished. Now, I wonder if they will ever digitize the old files to complete the online records?
     
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  8. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    Good question and one that would be worth posing to the archives.

    One of the most remarkable absences from a WW2 perspective is the infantry battalion war diaries.

    PS having seen the more modern devices they have for the microfilm - microfilm readers connected to computers so one can easily digitize a page by scrolling to the right spot and then just pressing a button - I have to imagine that digitizing paper records would be much more time consuming.
     
  9. Sailormannn

    Sailormannn Active Member

    I wonder who specifically we could ask for information and plans regarding completing this. Not having the Infantry Diaries digitized seems such a huge gap.

    Thoughts?
     
  10. JackGe

    JackGe Junior Member

    This is a great resource, thank you for creating the xls file/chart on the war diaries.

    One question, what does Column 3 represent - usually has one or two (sometimes three) serials composed of five numbers?
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2019
  11. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    The third column, or Volume Number, is the locator for the actual war diaries at the Library and Archives of Canada. If you were to go to the LAC to view the diaries, you would have to request them by Volume Number. For example, the war diaries for Halifax Fortress, by Volume, are:

    Halifax Fortress
    13859 – 1939/08--1940/03
    13860 – 1940/04-1940/09
    13861 – 1940/10-1941/03
    13862 – 1941/04-1941/09
    13863 – 1941/10-1942/03
    13864 – 1942/04-1942/09
    13865 – 1942/10-1943/04
    13866 – 1943/05-1943/11
    13867 – 1943/12-1944/05
    13868 – 1944/06-1945/04
    13869 – 1945/04-1945/11

    Here is a picture of a box at the LAC that contains Volume 15166, which are the war diaries of the Queen's Own Rifles of Canada from June 1940 to November 1941:

    DSCF9444.JPG
     
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  12. The Excel file is indeed a huge help in finding the specific file one is looking for! David, have you thought if proposing it to the Heritage Canadiana? If posted on their website this would benefit everybody.

    I find that these Canadian archives have the extraordinary advantage of having apparently conserved all the appendices and small scraps of paperwork where the most valuable information often lies, whereas the British National Archives scrapped many of these when moving to their current location years ago. An irreparable loss for History, and in my view nothing short of a crime against the memory of all those whose actions where described in those records now lost forever...

    Well done David and the NAC/LAC/Heritage Canadiana !

    Michel
     
  13. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    Michel:

    Thanks for your kind comments. I was in contact with Heritage Canadiana for a number of years and they were pretty responsive at the time. I believe I did offer them the spreadsheet, but I don't remember getting a response. At the time, I noted a number of errors in their postings, such as reels that were not war diaries and belonged in another area as well as a couple of reels that were duplicates. They never made those corrections so I let it go.

    David
     
  14. ducatim901

    ducatim901 Junior Member

    This is great!
    Is there also material about the German fortifications of the Atlantikwall?
    I have not yet searched which divisions (I presume 1st and 2nd Can.Inf.Div.) actually fought on the Atlantic coast (where the fortifications were built).
    Did the Canadians also keep German maps of the fortifications they found and used?
    And did they also did their own research for the fortifications like the Americans and British did, if so where can i find these (not in a war diary i assume)?
    JK
     
  15. Tiflo 62

    Tiflo 62 Member

    If anyone is interested for a timesaver application, I coded one and I can send it to you.
    It allows you to download all the pages of a reel automatically. It may take a while to finish the task (depends of your PC config) but it's better than a million of click :D
     
  16. Project44

    Project44 Member

    This is an old post, but if you still have this code I would be very interested! Our team deals with a ton of microflim copies
     
  17. KevinT

    KevinT Senior Member

    Not sure if I had this listing from here if so thank you whoever did it, if not I hope they do not mind sharing it.

    Does anyone know if the Infantry Regiment War Diaries are on here anywhere?

    Cheers

    Kevin

    War diaries - Héritage
     

    Attached Files:

  18. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

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  19. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    BTW, that is my spreadsheet and you are free to share it.
     
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  20. Tom OBrien

    Tom OBrien Senior Member

    Anyone know if there are any RCEME files on line? Particularly wondering about Recovery Companies.

    Regards

    Tom
     

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