Tagged Documents at the National Archives (& Rocket Half Track)

I came across the following photos in the War Diary of the 2nd Bn Middlesex Regiment (MG Bn of 3rd Division) while up in the archives yesterday. Back in the 80s/90s PRO/TNA went through a period of 'tagging' documents - often with disasterous results as you can see from these photos. Readers are not allowed to undo these tags, so daily the documents are damaged by them.

Anyway, 2nd Middx seem to have picked his H/T up in the Falaise battle and used it themselves - for the life of me I cannot recall what the proper German designation is for this vehicle - any ideas?

Hope you like the photos.

 

Panzerwerfer is the name for two different types of half-tracked multiple rocket launchers employed by Germany during the Second World War. The two self-propelled artillery vehicles are the 15cm Panzerwerfer 42 auf Selbstfahrlafette Sd.Kfz.4/1 (commonly called Maultier) and 15cm Panzerwerfer 42 auf Schwerer Wehrmachtsschlepper (or Panzerwerfer auf SWS). It was often called the "Moaning Minnie by" Allied forces.

 

That's a "Panzerwerfer 42 auf Maultier".

What those cretins are doing to those photos is simply unbelievable! The photos themselves are simply excellent, the way they are being "kept" is criminal.
:mad111:

 

Just had a quick browse on the net and I think it's the Sd.Kfz.4/1 model as the Wehrmachtsschlepper had bigger track wheels (first and last wheels)

 

Hi guys - thanks for the response and extra info. I copied the entire 2nd Middx diary for Normandy, so will have a read of it and see if there is any mention of them using it.

I agree the damage is disgraceful, but 20-odd years of visiting Kew sadly tells me any protest will go on deaf ears. I was there the day they released Wilfred Owen's service record, much of it containing paperwork in his own hand. It had been placed in the wrong class and was simly entitled 'File - Lt W.E.S.Owen MC'. I took the file to the desk and told them they would have to keep this out of public view as it was worth thousands to a collector and would soon be stolen. On that occasion they listened - eventually.

However, on 'routine' stuff like this you just get a letter or an email and nothing ever gets done. The state of some documents is a national disgrace, to be honest.

 

The pictures may have been copied previously as 2 seem familiar

It could be, but they were taken with an officer's personal camera and are only about 2x2 inches in size.

This diary is particularly good with casualty lists and also the battalion's own magazine, which is tucked into the diary throughout. Some of the black pre-D Day loading weight markers, to be placed inside the windows of vehicles (I suspect you know what I mean, god knows what they are called!) are also in there, with notes scribbled on. Quite a treasure!

 

What in Gods name is going on there? Dont they realise that documents like this are invaluable. I showed this to our librarian in work and he was really angry that documents could be treated in such cavalier fashion.

 

Here's one of many reasons why they shouldn't be tagged:


Taken from WO 167/475 19 Field Regiment, RA

 

Agree with you 100% on this, my particular bugbear is a folded document like a map, which is creased very carefully four seperate ways and then a hold punched right through... holing the document 4 seperate ways and sealing it forever with a tag that cant be removed due to the TNA regulations. Even if I got special permission to open it up (which is a gamble, seeing as how I cant see whether its important or not, or else a waste of time) it would cause unecesarry stress on the paper and extra damage).

I know on the other side of the coin the ammount of documents that would be out of order or with missing pieces would be far greater... still I dont like them.

 

Adam....To solve the problem of loosing pages they should just box them all. One box at a time of the table to stop pages ending up in the wrong box, as is the rule now.

I remember the first time I saw one of the 1940 OBLI diaries with torn pages and parts of them missing-history gone forever. They would never be like that if they had been kept in a box. I must say I loose little sleep when one of the original tags accidently 'pops' when I pull on it to create some slack to turn the page.

 

Those things do more harm to the documents than anything else IMHO.

Always obstructing something important such as two numerals of a service number. Also and lets be honest, when your photographing hundreds of pages (Andy) there is constantly the horrid sound of papers tearing as we try and capture all the script.

 

Also and lets be honest, when your photographing hundreds of pages (Andy) there is constantly the horrid sound of papers tearing as we try and capture all the script.

.... or the "WO 167 Tear" as the sound is popularally known at TNA.

 

Little short of criminal damage IMO. Cant they digitise them and leave the originals secure somewhere?

Keith

 

Too much to digitise IMO. It would take years to copy all of the WW2 diaries. That said they can buy all of WO 167 series off me when I'VE finished them - Only around 500 diaries to go

 

TNA has over 11 million documents with anything from one page to 1,000 pages or more. It's going to take us a lifetime to copy that lot ;-)

It would help matters, as far as further damage is concerned, to make the tags a lot longer so that a document could be effortlessly opened out flat.