War Diaries through Heritage Canadiana

Good stuff!

 

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

 

There are no RCAF diaries at Heritage Canadiana. Sorry.

 

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 ...

 

When is the next update?

 

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

 

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?

 

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.

 

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?

 

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?

 

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:

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Generally the infantry war diaries have not been posted on Heritage Canadiana. On the other hand, the Library and Archives of Canada have begun posting some infantry war diaries. Take a look at this link (a slow load) to see about 407 entries for WWII war diaries that have been digitized at the LAC:

https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/colle...D&Operator_2=AND&start=0&num=100&OnlineCode=1

 

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

 

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

Regards

Tom