Remembering Today Box

Great idea

 

We now have a Goolge Map for Remembering today. It's a bit experimental and I'm not sure how far it will go, but an interesting experiment. A small number of the markers have links to the cemetery aerial view. I can add more when I get the Lat/Long co-ordinates.

http://www.********.co.uk/WW2talk/remembermap.html


cheers,

geoff

 

Geoff,

I am once more suitably impressed.

Regards
Tom

 

I've added a few more links to the markers, but still missing a few latitude/longitude POIs.

 

The Street View control has been added - where applicable.

Pegman!

 

Great map Geoff - awesome work!

 

Great map Geoff - awesome work!
Some of the POIs I have to search out manually, flying low over Google Map. Usually find them but can's see El Alemain - probably almost invisible though. Tomorrow is a lush green landscape.

 

Here's a couple of NZ co-ordinates for you Geoff:

Cambridge (Leamington) Public Cemetery
geotagged geo:lat=-37.902914 geo:lon=175.487559
There are 2 Commonwealth burials of the 1914-1918 war and 1 of the 1939-1945 war here.
Leamington is the southern residential district of the town of Cambridge. The cemetery is at the end of Wordsworth Street, Leamington.

Cambridge (Hautapu) Public Cemetery
geotagged geo:lat=-37.863568 geo:lon=175.455292
There are 10 Commonwealth burials of the 1914-1918 war and 2 of the 1939-1945 war here.
Hautapu is 3 kilometres north west of Cambridge. The cemetery is about 1 kilometre south east of Hautapu on the Hautapu Road.

(I got the cemetery details from CWGC, but I think the road should be Victoria Street (not Hautapu Road) for the Hautapu Cemetery because that's the only cemetery I know of up there)

Hope I got the lats and longs right - I googled them

 

Thanks.

I've added today's NZ remembered to the map.

 

Remembering Today-Private ALFRED PEARSON 1st Bn., Middlesex Regiment
who died age 28
between 01 October 1942 and 02 October 1942

A number of records have a date range, which can be quite wide in some cases. The random today selector will use the first date when selecting a remembrance, so one of these records may appear sometimes.

 

Now here's a strange thing. Today's Remembering and the previous day's fell on consecutive days in 1942 and are from the same unit:

Private MAXWELL EDWARD GUSSY
VX24023, A.I.F. 2/24 Bn., Australian Infantry
who died age 20
on 24 October 1942
Son of Maxwell Edward and Catherine Gussy, of West Footscray, Victoria, Australia.
Remembered with honour
EL ALAMEIN WAR CEMETERY

Private ARTHUR UNDERWOOD LEE
VX47740, A.I.F. 2/24 Bn., Australian Infantry
who died age 35
on 25 October 1942
Son of William and Henrietta Lee; husband of Annie Lea, of Williamstown, Victoria, Australia.
Remembered with honour
ALAMEIN MEMORIAL


Their home address is around 6 miles apart, outside Melbourne.

If you're wondering how this happened, here is how each day is chosen. All the search engine data is put into 31 files, one for each day of the month. Each file contains pairs of numbers; the casualty ID and the month number. For each of the 365 days the appropriate day file is selected. One entry is selected using a very good random number generator*. If the month matches, this record is used. Otherwise the random selection is repeated until a match is found for the month. The ID is then used to automatically download the CWGC page**, the data is stripped out and put into a file. This file content is what is presented for each day on the Portal page. Selecting all 365 records takes about 10 minutes of computer time, if the wind is in the right direction.
This is as random as it could be considering the data available. It means a proportional list of Services, Officers, NCOs, Men and Nationalities are chosen.

The 2/24th's losses for these two days were 24 men and Australian losses for these days were around 10-12% of the total. These selections were chance.

* Pretty good, but not quite cryptographic grade, which cannot be done in software.

** might not be possible after June 2011

 

I'm still waiting for the first BEF casualty

 

I'm still waiting for the first BEF casualty

Bound to be some, but you may have to wait until May/June for the digital odds to kick in.

 

Now here's a strange thing. Today's Remembering and the previous day's fell on consecutive days in 1942 and are from the same unit:

Private MAXWELL EDWARD GUSSY
VX24023, A.I.F. 2/24 Bn., Australian Infantry
who died age 20
on 24 October 1942
Son of Maxwell Edward and Catherine Gussy, of West Footscray, Victoria, Australia.
Remembered with honour
EL ALAMEIN WAR CEMETERY

Private ARTHUR UNDERWOOD LEE
VX47740, A.I.F. 2/24 Bn., Australian Infantry
who died age 35
on 25 October 1942
Son of William and Henrietta Lee; husband of Annie Lea, of Williamstown, Victoria, Australia.
Remembered with honour
ALAMEIN MEMORIAL


Their home address is around 6 miles apart, outside Melbourne.

If you're wondering how this happened, here is how each day is chosen. All the search engine data is put into 31 files, one for each day of the month. Each file contains pairs of numbers; the casualty ID and the month number. For each of the 365 days the appropriate day file is selected. One entry is selected using a very good random number generator*. If the month matches, this record is used. Otherwise the random selection is repeated until a match is found for the month. The ID is then used to automatically download the CWGC page**, the data is stripped out and put into a file. This file content is what is presented for each day on the Portal page. Selecting all 365 records takes about 10 minutes of computer time, if the wind is in the right direction.
This is as random as it could be considering the data available. It means a proportional list of Services, Officers, NCOs, Men and Nationalities are chosen.

The 2/24th's losses for these two days were 24 men and Australian losses for these days were around 10-12% of the total. These selections were chance.

* Pretty good, but not quite cryptographic grade, which cannot be done in software.

** might not be possible after June 2011

Maybe a few more of the 9th division may come out as their losses were over 25% of the whole El Alamein commonwealth casualties.

This division took their objective in the north on the first day of El Alamein and held it against all Rommel's best troops that he had to move their to break the Aussies.

This northern sector was to deny Rommel a way through near the sea.

According to Montgomery, the 9th division was his surprise packet. This was the same division who denied Rommel for eight months at Tobruk.

 

Now here's a strange thing. Today's Remembering and the previous day's fell on consecutive days in 1942 and are from the same unit:

Private MAXWELL EDWARD GUSSY
VX24023, A.I.F. 2/24 Bn., Australian Infantry
who died age 20
on 24 October 1942
Son of Maxwell Edward and Catherine Gussy, of West Footscray, Victoria, Australia.
Remembered with honour
EL ALAMEIN WAR CEMETERY

Private ARTHUR UNDERWOOD LEE
VX47740, A.I.F. 2/24 Bn., Australian Infantry
who died age 35
on 25 October 1942
Son of William and Henrietta Lee; husband of Annie Lea, of Williamstown, Victoria, Australia.
Remembered with honour
ALAMEIN MEMORIAL


Their home address is around 6 miles apart, outside Melbourne.

If you're wondering how this happened, here is how each day is chosen. All the search engine data is put into 31 files, one for each day of the month. Each file contains pairs of numbers; the casualty ID and the month number. For each of the 365 days the appropriate day file is selected. One entry is selected using a very good random number generator*. If the month matches, this record is used. Otherwise the random selection is repeated until a match is found for the month. The ID is then used to automatically download the CWGC page**, the data is stripped out and put into a file. This file content is what is presented for each day on the Portal page. Selecting all 365 records takes about 10 minutes of computer time, if the wind is in the right direction.
This is as random as it could be considering the data available. It means a proportional list of Services, Officers, NCOs, Men and Nationalities are chosen.

The 2/24th's losses for these two days were 24 men and Australian losses for these days were around 10-12% of the total. These selections were chance.

* Pretty good, but not quite cryptographic grade, which cannot be done in software.

** might not be possible after June 2011

The VX means that they both enlisted in Victoria.

NX = New South Wales etc.

 

Bound to be some, but you may have to wait until May/June for the digital odds to kick in.

Good 'Obvious' point - That gives me more time to collect diaries

 

I'm still waiting for the first BEF casualty

I'm a couple of days late with this one Drew, but in the absence of a random name, in amongst the information that you sent me on 1 Border was the following :-

23/10/1939 - "No.3594129 Pte. Humphreys R. HQ attached D.am ? MT Driver was killed this morning near MARCHIENNES. His truck was hit by another truck driven by Pte. Fowler and forced into a tree."

25/10/1939 - "Pte. Humphreys buried today in I.W.G. cemetery at Douai."



In Memory of
Private REGINALD HUMPHREYS

3594129, 1st Bn., Border Regiment
who died age 33
on 23 October 1939

Remembered with honour
DOUAI COMMUNAL CEMETERY

Commemorated in perpetuity by
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

 

Clive has just informed me that the Remembered Today chap:

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/59522-remembering-today-91144-able-seaman-basil-ivan-gibbs-cjx-159228-royal-navy-hms-pembroke/


is the same as the one chosen on this day last year:


http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/55543-remembering-today-91144-able-seaman-bigibbs-cjx-159228-royal-navy-hms-pembroke/

How can this happen if they are supposed to be selected randomly?

I think it is similar to The Birthday Problem.

To do a rough estimate, lets assume the number of casualties ever day is the same, this is around 330 every day for the 5 1/2 years or so of WW2.
There is a 1 in 330 chance of any particular casualty being selected each day. To get the same one selected more than once, you may think the odds are 1 in 330 x 330, or about 1 in 100,000
Over a 6 year period, for each day there are 5+4+3+2+1 comparisons between each year, for each of 365 days.
So I make it:

(5+4+3+2+1) x 365/330 = 16

So we should see the same casualty appear more than once on 16 occasions, over a 6 year period.
I suspect it will be much lower than this as I've made assumptions that ever day has the same number of casualties, but I suspect it may happen a few times.

Anyone better at Statistics is welcome to shoot my theory down (maths is not my strong point)

Cheers,


Geoff

 

Thanks Geoff

 

Looking at my stats again this morning, it looks rather dodgy (no stats experts on the forum?)
Since we've already made the random selections up to the end of 2018, I can confirm there will be four casualties appearing twice. So three more to go, unless we've already missed some!
So maybe I'm not too far out.

For the 9th day of all Novembers there are a total of 1292 casualties, so easily possible that the same name is selected more than once.