ARCRE British & Commonwealth War Diary Search Engine - no longer online

Discussion in 'Research Material' started by PsyWar.Org, May 4, 2011.

  1. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    Well done Lee.
     
  2. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Thanks D!
     
  3. stolpi

    stolpi Well-Known Member

    Tried out the hard to find 6th Airborne Div HQ (G) for Jan 1945 [search: Airborne HQ; Date: 1945 to 1945] and it showed up!

    Congratulations! Well done.
     
  4. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Great to hear that Pieter. That one is real tricking to find using the TNA catalogue!
     
  5. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    thick person here!

    When I do a search for 2 Recce in Burma I get a few returns,
    one for the War Diary (1942 May - Dec) and another for 1946 Jan - July

    However, what I wanted to find was WO 166/6181 (1942 Jan.- Apr)
    (also, where's the diary after April?!)

    Is this down to the difference between "Reconnaisance" and "Recce"?

    Also, nothing comes back for 1943?


    Other than that, a most impressive amount of work which requires my thanks!
     
  6. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    AHD, in your case try a search on "2 Recon", that will get WO 166/6181 and those for 1943.

    But you'll also want to cross reference that with a search on "2 Recce".

    As yet I haven't modified any of TNA's data, just searching it in a different way.
    What I'm probably going to do is go through all the different abbreviations and update them, like change:

    - "coy." to "coy. (company)"
    - "Recce" to "Recce (Reconnaissance)", etc.

    In some cases TNA did do that but mostly not.

    Lee
     
  7. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    So here's what we get:

    Search on "2 Recc":
    WO 167/418 2 Armoured Recce (Reconnaissance) Brigade Headquarters 1940 Mar., Apr.
    WO 171/8250 2 Team 1945 Feb.- Oct.
    WO 172/453 2 Division: Recce Regt. 1942 May- Dec.
    WO 172/4253 2 British Division: Recce Regt. 1944 Jan.-Mar.
    WO 172/6953 2 British Infantry Division: 2 Recce Regt. 1945 Jan.- Dec.
    WO 172/10053 2 Recce Regt. 1946 Jan.- July
    WO 179/120 2 Recce Sqn. 1940 June-Dec.
    WO 179/367 2 Recce Sqn. 1941 Jan.
    WO 179/5543 2 War Materials Recce Team 1945 Apr.- July
    WO 179/5604 2/7 Recce Regt. 1946 Jan.- May


    Search on "2 recon":
    WO 166/1089 ARMOURED BRIGADES: 2ND. ARMOURED BRIGADE: Reconnaissance Section. 1940 Sept.- 1941 Aug.
    WO 166/6181 DIVISIONS: 2 DIVISION: 2 Reconnaisance Regiment. 1942 Jan.- Apr.
    WO 167/418 2 Armoured Recce (Reconnaissance) Brigade Headquarters 1940 Mar., Apr.
    WO 171/1260 2 Welsh Guards (Armoured Reconnaisance) 1944 Jan.- Dec.
    WO 172/2250 2 Reconnaissance Regiment 1943 Jan.- Dec.
    WO 172/4591 2 Reconnaissance Regiment 1944 Jan., Apr.- Dec.

    This throws up an interesting dilemma. Should I actually add an abbreviation to existing data? For example, searching on the word "Recce" is never going to find WO 172/2250.
     
  8. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    Brilliant Lee, fantastically helpful

    I would suggest the abbreviation, as I can
    never remember how to spell reconnaissance
    and usually end up using Recce!
     
  9. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Thanks Lee. Any plans to add further files in the future?
     
  10. brickmaker

    brickmaker Senior Member

    Like all the best things - simple in concept and easy to use (but probably hellish to create!)
    I thought I'd caught it out looking for Loyal North Lancs Regiment in Mesopotamia WW1 but NO! a semicolon between LNLR and Mespot gave me the right result - amazing! I'm off to their museum now to see what they can tell me.
     
  11. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Thanks Lee. Any plans to add further files in the future?

    Andy, all the war diaries are there now.

    I am also planning other search engines, e.g. Operations Record Book. Although the war diaries were the priority due to the slightly convoluted method of cataloguing.

    The idea is to keep these as separate entities to enable easy finding of specific and related record groups. I’m trying to keep it as simple and convenient as possible.

    However, other records tend to be much easier to track down so it depends on whether there’s a real benefit in creating a specific search engine for those other groups.

    I’m certainly open to ideas. :)
     
  12. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Like all the best things - simple in concept and easy to use (but probably hellish to create!)
    I thought I'd caught it out looking for Loyal North Lancs Regiment in Mesopotamia WW1 but NO! a semicolon between LNLR and Mespot gave me the right result - amazing! I'm off to their museum now to see what they can tell me.

    Thanks for the kind words brickmaker and glad to hear it's done the job for you.

    The big test for the website will come if it starts getting popular. The search algorithm is far from efficient (which is probably why TNA don't do their searches the way I am!)

    If the site begins to fall down when it gets busy, then that's when the real fun will start. :D

    Lee
     
  13. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Please note the new link to the War Diary Search Engine:
    Arcre - War Diary Search

    Registered users can now save or email search results.

    Plus there's a document copy order form which sends me your National Archives copy requests directly.
    Arcre - Document Copy Service

    Lee
     
  14. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Now linked the war diary search engine results with document copy ordering. Select the results you want copied and click the go button :)

    Is there any call for saving search results as an HTML or XML file? (Currently results can be saved as a plain text file, spreadsheet or emailed to yourself.)

    Also let me know if you have ideas for new features or other archive related search engines.

    Lee
     
  15. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Now have a new search engine that can search the entire 11 million National Archives extended catalogue entries.

    The new search engine has filters for war dairies, RAF operations record books, service records, SOE, MI5 and some other subjects like military deception and psychological warfare.

    As like the original war diary search engine, search results can be saved as a text file, spreadsheet, sent to yourself as an email, sent to the National Archives Advance order form or sent to my own document copy service order form. (You need to be logged into the website to do these things).

    The searches are done on the National Archives Beta catalogue with extended descriptions so it should be able to find records more easily than using the conventional National Archives catalogue.

    Also I can add further filters to the search engine, so if you have any suggestions for particular record series or subjects just let me know.

    Here's the link: Arcre - National Archives Search Engine

    I'm leaving the old war diary search engine up as it searches in a different way and might be, in some situations, a better option to use for war diary searches.

    Lee
     
  16. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

    Nice resource Thanks

    Steven
     
  17. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Thanks Steven.

    Although you are rather familiar with these records anyway, I hope the SOE section helps with your own area of research.

    Lee
     
  18. geoff501

    geoff501 Achtung Feind hört mit

    Lee,

    If I click the link to your NA search engine, my screen goes black and the PC re-boots. It may be my crappy system (win2k, Firefox 3.6.22) but thought I'd report it in case you had others do so. Same happened yesterday from the link on Twitter. I'll try a more modern system tomorrow!

    cheers,

    geoff
     
  19. PsyWar.Org

    PsyWar.Org Archive monkey

    Thanks for the feedback Geoff. That shouldn't be happening. There's a little amount of JavaScript to control the drop box selections but nothing too obscure. Certainly shouldn't be taking out Firefox. Although I must admit I haven't tested it on win2k.

    I'll have to power up a virtual machine to check it out.

    Thanks for letting me know.

    Lee
     
  20. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    No problems here on XP / Firefox 6.0.2
     

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