4 figure Map references in 5RIDG WD from Normandy

There seem to be both 6 figure and 4 figure map references in the 5RIDG WD
The Coordinate Decoding software doesn't like the 4 figure refs.
Would it be valid to turn 7755 into 770550 or 775555?
Or is there a different method for 4 figure references. \
And. . . do these 4 and 6 figure references ALL refer to the Nord de Guerre or Lambert Zone maps only - were the maps posted on PhilM's site the only maps the troops worked with in 1944?

 

1) There's a single theatre grid, so the map reference will work on all maps regardless of scale.
2) You can add as many zeros as you like, as they don't change the location. You cannot add other numbers as they do.
3) The number of digits defines the accuracy. 7755 should identify a 10x10km grid, and is at the bottom left of the square. Six digits are a 1x1km grid, and eight digits are 100x100m.
4) Example: The map is 1:250,000 wartime map, as would have been used by the troops. Black Cross = 876280 (1 Armd. Div.) Red Cross = 876281 (RAF) and Green Cross = 876284 (6 RTR War Diary German tanks) although it would be better to show these as squares with a length of 1,000m centred on the grid reference. So 876284 is between 3,000 - 5,000m from 876280, straight north. The system was the same in Normandy.


All the best

Andreas

 

Thanks Andreas,
The Coordinate Decoder is the problem I had as it said the 4 figure references were of the wrong format. Not the case with 6 figures though.
So just clarifying, am I right to think that if I have 4 figure reference to a place
1 it's only accurate to within the particular 10km square up and to the right of the coordinates,
and
2 I COULD enter 770550 with the relevant prefix letters, and I would end up at the bottom left of a 1 km square, which SHOULD coincide with the 10km square IF the decoder accepted the 4 figure 7755 reference. ??

I did reread it and I think it makes sense
Philip

 

Yes that should work I guess.

All the best

Andreas

 

When mapping things myself I have occasionally come across 4 figure map references and typically found that you have to map them in order to see what is there.

i.e. if it is the crossroads at " xxxx " then the crossroads may not be at exactly " xxxx " but it would be the only crossroads there, or at least the "most obvious" one. A six figure map reference can make things that bit more precise but even then that might not be precisely where something was, it would still have to be the case of looking at the map and working out what was there that matches any other descriptions that there might be, I've been surprised myself too how many errors can very occasionally slip in, even experienced heads can transpose the numbers and one has to puzzle it out as to what was actually going on.

The 8th Armoured Brigade war diary provides lots of examples of how things could be here...





And... i.e. look at - on the maps - where " 855672 " actually is.... searching for hard and fast rules can be a lot like trying to map references and marry them up to what can be diverse and varied accounts. The guides can be there, but one can still, very often, get lost in all of the details that they may provide.

 

I would not interpret a four-figure Grid reference as ABCD as the same as AB0CD0. I think of Grid ABCD as within the grid square ABCD or "500m of Grid AB5CD5". Am I overthinking this?

A military unit or formation may not be located at a single six-figure grid reference, or within 100m of that location. It may be easier to say the unit is in (4 figure grid square), than try to provide five or six sub-unit locations. Often, the locations given in War Diaries are the grids of the HQ, which may not be the centre of mass of the unit. E.g. the Regimental HQ of an artillery unit may be somewhere where radio reception is best to communicate with the brigade, where the BCs and FOOs would be. This might be an intermediate point between the gun batteries and the supported arm. An Armoured Regiment HQ might be close to a road where it can be reached easily by DR while tank squadrons might be dispersed in covered hides away from the HQ. Sometimes that interpretation is "somewhere in that grid square.

Finding locations in Normandy can be complicated because:-

1. The military maps did not always match the features on the ground. Villages marked in one location might actually start half a grid square away as shown by the road signs. This was more of a problem inland in Op Bluecoat than close to the beachhead.

2. The names of features on the maps might not be those used locally. E.g. the Pointe du Hoc was mis-spelled as Pointe - du Hoe.

 

That all makes sense to me and I understand the inherently approximate nature of any reference in the context of where troops are in a mobile situation. But I am happy at this stage to be with a km or so. I have been surprised by the apparent differences day to day in the advances made. Some days many kms are covered or gained, some places become a base for 3-5 days of 'local' operations, while others are one night stands, so to speak; all of which to my mind reflects the very difficult nature of fighting whether on foot or mechanised in the small fields and deep hedgerows and sunken lanes of the bocage.

 

WWII Western Front, Every Hour - [1] June 1944



It's one of those old arguments, whether or not the allied effort from the Normandy bridgeheads moved inland "fast enough" and how effective the axis was in holding the ground and whether the axis effectively chose the best ground to hold or were even more effectively beaten back and was simply unable to "stem the tide".

My initial experience of how many of the battles were previously reported was that the Germans often seem to claim to have won a battle locally, and then claimed to withdrew to better fighting positions and fought again further back until they were eventually totally overwhelmed and their whole front collapsed.

I think that there seem to have been a lot of good podcasts and youtube videos - particularly recently - that have tried to go over much of the same ground. It can sometimes seem to be a case though of what one picks to hear and what one chooses to view. Or what an algorithm suggests. Whether - for instance - one sees content that praises Monty or takes a different tack.

Arguably the small fields and deep hedgerows and sunken lanes ought to have been fairly familiar to many of the British that were fighting there. Although it bore a distinct difference from the desert warfare from which some of them had become veterans in. Some of the allied Regiments had trained well in the UK in villages and fields, along roads and country paths that were not too dissimilar. Often the key difference was whether one was on the attack or standing-to in defence.

I sometimes wonder, currently, if we don't focus sufficiently on what might be called axis propaganda, or what historians and authors of books and/or "content" about history think (or know) will sell at any given time. Time and again it seems that the "audience" has been given whatever - at the time - it required. And what sold has dictated what has been said.

Trying to be objective and sticking simply to the facts has probably - more often than not - meant that things haven't sold and have been largely forgotten now - as a result. One can revisit the same ground and perhaps try to see something new and maybe totally different there. A film about D-Day for example could focus on what might have been a more typical experience of someone landing there or an anniversary of the Normandy Landings might not just be about what happened on 6d6m1944 and try to focus far more on the whole gamut of the entire Normandy Campaign. But attention might stray rather quickly on to something else. It's not as "good" a story - perhaps - or at least not as easily digested and packaged in to pithy soundbites.

Some of the villages in Normandy do have their own days of liberation - where they might have their own special fetes. As the front moved, so do the dates. Occasionally there has been some confusion now as to who liberated where. Often the first allied units in moved on relatively quickly to somewhere, elsewhere, and later units seem to have become associated more with such and such a given place. The last 80 years or so of history too have left a particularly strong mark. With some battles being largely forgotten and others having taken on a far greater significant than they ever had at the time. Some anniversaries are remembered, others not so much. Some stories are constantly told and retold, often with the same attempts to qualify them and add very researched caveats. But the story that sells best tends to be the one that gets best preserved and the one most people therefore see and remember as a consequence. I recently heard someone describe the "Battle of Rauray" being rather like the "Battle of the Alamo" - which gave me pause - as I wondered - just how?

---- x ----

Edit -

 

For some more context - there's a rather more apt description here -





- where a comparison between the fighting on "Point 103" is compared to the Alamo and to Rorke's Drift and there is a mention there too of the mis-named - name of "Tiger Night" on "Tiger Hill" - also for "Point 103"...

"Tiger Night" - 11th June 1944 | WW2Talk

Finding an accurate map reference now for where "Point 103" actually was is particularly tricky, I think, in the context of where the troops there knew "Point 103" to be - as the "Point 103" one sees now and then on maps wasn't actually where they referred to as "Point 103" was - or at least it couldn't have been one particularly small high point at "103m" given just how many allied units had to have actually been there and the overall area(s) that they would have had to have occupied.

Mapping - Normandy - Point 103

Many people now might just look on a map, find "Point 103" and think to just go there, and think once there to have been where "Point 103" was.