Difference between revisions of "Lists of personal diaries, letters, memoirs"

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== Individual items ==
 
== Individual items ==
 
These names need to be matched to individual units so they can be added to its page. '''If you can find out which units these people were in, and [https://mia2.typeform.com/to/dkhC4B send in your links] to have them added to the wiki.''' If you're working on someone's record, you can also edit the wiki to add a note saying so. Remove the name below once it's been added to a regiment or battalion page.
 
These names need to be matched to individual units so they can be added to its page. '''If you can find out which units these people were in, and [https://mia2.typeform.com/to/dkhC4B send in your links] to have them added to the wiki.''' If you're working on someone's record, you can also edit the wiki to add a note saying so. Remove the name below once it's been added to a regiment or battalion page.
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* Matron Margaret Gray [http://www.awm.gov.au/people/P3583/#collection-items Australian War Memorial - Anzac Connections - collection items]
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** [[British Red Cross Hospital, Rouen]]
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* Petty Officer Hans Heinz Harmes-Emden [http://www.awm.gov.au/people/P3818/#collection-items Australian War Memorial - Anzac Connections - collection items]
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** German navy: SMS Emden (1908)
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* Private David Watson Izatt [http://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10675843/#collection-items Australian War Memorial - Anzac Connections - collection items]
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** 10 Casualty Clearing Station (British?)
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** 15 Casualty Clearing Station (British?)
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** [[No 2 Australian General Hospital]]
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** [[No 1 Casualty Clearing Station, Australian Imperial Force (AIF)]]
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* Sergeant John Robert Cowan Kelly [http://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10677284/#collection-items Australian War Memorial - Anzac Connections - collection items]
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** [[30th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force (AIF)]]
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** [[Elope Force]] in Russia
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* Major Percy Lay [http://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10675871/#collection-items Australian War Memorial - Anzac Connections - collection items]
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** [[8th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force (AIF)]]
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** [[Dunster Force]] in Persia
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* Matron Mary McLean Loughron [http://www.awm.gov.au/people/P10675771/#collection-items Australian War Memorial - Anzac Connections - collection items]
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** Red Cross
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** [[Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service]] Reserve
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** 2 Stationary Hospital Annexe (which country?)
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* [http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/sassoon Siegfried Sassoon's journals] are online at Cambridge Digital Library (but note that his ''Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'' is a fictionalised novel, not his memoirs). Sassoon served in the following units but we still need to know if he served in other units later in the war:
 
* [http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/sassoon Siegfried Sassoon's journals] are online at Cambridge Digital Library (but note that his ''Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'' is a fictionalised novel, not his memoirs). Sassoon served in the following units but we still need to know if he served in other units later in the war:
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* [https://archive.org/details/whenchenalsingsm00wyth When Chenal sings the Marseillaise : With the honors of war : Sister Julie by Wythe Williams]
 
* [https://archive.org/details/whenchenalsingsm00wyth When Chenal sings the Marseillaise : With the honors of war : Sister Julie by Wythe Williams]
 
* John Terraine (ed.), ''General Jack's Diary'' ISBN 978-0304353200 ([http://www.amazon.co.uk/General-1914-18-Cassell-Military-Paperbacks/dp/0304353205/ Amazon link]). What is Jack's full name and which units did he serve with?
 
  
 
* [http://www.masshist.org/features/saltonstall/nora-saltonstall Letters and photos of Nora Saltonstall] (American Red Cross)
 
* [http://www.masshist.org/features/saltonstall/nora-saltonstall Letters and photos of Nora Saltonstall] (American Red Cross)
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* There's a stash of [http://hdl.handle.net/10462/comp/2948 fantastic photos  in The "Cambrian" Album] from the [http://hdl.handle.net/10462/eadarc/5855 OM77-14 2nd Light Horse Association Records 1914-1920] at the State Library of Queensland. The album includes photos from other units - can you help by adding images and links to unit pages?
 
* There's a stash of [http://hdl.handle.net/10462/comp/2948 fantastic photos  in The "Cambrian" Album] from the [http://hdl.handle.net/10462/eadarc/5855 OM77-14 2nd Light Horse Association Records 1914-1920] at the State Library of Queensland. The album includes photos from other units - can you help by adding images and links to unit pages?
  
* [https://www.archive.org/stream/englishwomanserg00sanduoft/englishwomanserg00sanduoft_djvu.txt An English Woman-Sergeant in the Serbian Army] by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_Sandes Flora Sandes], 'the only British woman officially to serve as a soldier in World War I'.
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* [https://www.archive.org/stream/englishwomanserg00sanduoft/englishwomanserg00sanduoft_djvu.txt An English Woman-Sergeant in the Serbian Army] by [[Wikipedia:Flora_Sandes|Flora Sandes]], 'the only British woman officially to serve as a soldier in World War I'.
  
* The [https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/PR88/165/ letters] of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Corkhill Sister Pearl Elizabeth Corkhill, AANS] could shed light on many locations.
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* The [https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/PR88/165/ letters] of [[Wikipedia:Pearl_Corkhill|Sister Pearl Elizabeth Corkhill, AANS]] could shed light on many locations.
  
 
* FIELD HOSPITAL & FLYING COLUMN. Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia by Violetta Thurstan.
 
* FIELD HOSPITAL & FLYING COLUMN. Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia by Violetta Thurstan.
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* [http://www.worldwar1luton.com/object/william-owen-war-diary-1916-1917 William Owen War Diary 1916-1917]
 
* [http://www.worldwar1luton.com/object/william-owen-war-diary-1916-1917 William Owen War Diary 1916-1917]
 
** driver in the Royal Field Artillery: which unit?
 
** driver in the Royal Field Artillery: which unit?
 
* [http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/PR90/018/ Bailey, Herbert Austin (Sapper, b 1873, d 1963)]
 
** engineer in [[5th Australian Division]]: which unit?
 
  
 
* [//www.awm.gov.au/collection/PR03431/ Bayley, Francis Wilton (Private), 1896-1974]: Imperial Camel Corps
 
* [//www.awm.gov.au/collection/PR03431/ Bayley, Francis Wilton (Private), 1896-1974]: Imperial Camel Corps
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* [http://www.familyletters.co.uk/ Richard, Jim, Ted, Paul, Topher Berryman]. Imperial War Museum catalogue entries for [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030021700 Ted] and [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030020614 Paul] give more details.
 
* [http://www.familyletters.co.uk/ Richard, Jim, Ted, Paul, Topher Berryman]. Imperial War Museum catalogue entries for [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030021700 Ted] and [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030020614 Paul] give more details.
**Richard: Indian Army Medical Corps, various hospitals and attached to [[20th Horse, Indian]]
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**Richard: [[Indian Medical Service]], various hospitals and attached to [[20th Horse, Indian]] (done)
 
**James: Middlesex Regiment (which battalion?); Royal Fusiliers Public Schools Battalion (which one?)
 
**James: Middlesex Regiment (which battalion?); Royal Fusiliers Public Schools Battalion (which one?)
 
**Christopher: Middlesex Regiment (which battalion?); Army Service Corps (which unit?)
 
**Christopher: Middlesex Regiment (which battalion?); Army Service Corps (which unit?)
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* Ely, Dinsmore, 1894-1918. '[https://archive.org/details/dinsmoreelyonewh00elyd Diary letters of Dinsmore Ely], edited by his father, Dr. James O. Ely'. Library of Congress via Internet Archive. American pilot.
 
* Ely, Dinsmore, 1894-1918. '[https://archive.org/details/dinsmoreelyonewh00elyd Diary letters of Dinsmore Ely], edited by his father, Dr. James O. Ely'. Library of Congress via Internet Archive. American pilot.
 
* [http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_War_Diary_of_David_Lindsay David Lindsay]
 
** [[1st Light Horse Regiment, Australian Imperial Force (AIF)]]
 
** artillery: which unit?
 
 
* [http://www.thekivellfamily.co.nz/family_pages/ralphs_diaries/Ralph_Doughty.html Ralph Dorchel DOUGHTY]
 
** Australian artillery: which unit?
 
  
 
* [http://www.trentu.ca/admin/library/archives/ffowldswelcome.htm Nursing Sister Helen L. Fowlds]
 
* [http://www.trentu.ca/admin/library/archives/ffowldswelcome.htm Nursing Sister Helen L. Fowlds]
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** pilot in Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force
 
** pilot in Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force
 
** prisoner of war in Germany
 
** prisoner of war in Germany
 
* [http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/engage/blog/family-memories-a-soldiers-great-war-sketchbook/ Private McGarrigle was a soldier with 7th Northumberland Fusiliers Observation Corps]
 
**[[1/7th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers, UK]]
 
  
 
* [http://dh.tcd.ie/letters1916/diyhistory/items/show/1791 Letter from John Adams to his mother Mary Adams, 13 May 1916]
 
* [http://dh.tcd.ie/letters1916/diyhistory/items/show/1791 Letter from John Adams to his mother Mary Adams, 13 May 1916]
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A user list of [http://trove.nla.gov.au/list?id=36319 Great War diaries, letters, reminiscences] on Trove (not all diaries may be available online)
 
A user list of [http://trove.nla.gov.au/list?id=36319 Great War diaries, letters, reminiscences] on Trove (not all diaries may be available online)
  
=== British personal narratives ===
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[https://www.historypin.org/en/first-world-war-centenary/memories-for-a-new-generation/her-noble-share/geo/-23.808737,145.433219,4/bounds/-52.964039,125.701774,13.492979,165.164664 State Library of Queensland HistoryPin collection for women in WWI]: 'Honouring the contribution of Queensland women during the First World War, both at the home front and the war front'.
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=== British and Irish personal narratives ===
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* [http://www.tcd.ie/library/fitasfiddles/ Fit as Fiddles and Hard as Nails] is a collection of Irish soldiers' letters, diaries and memoirs digitized by Trinity College Dublin.
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* [http://www.librariesni.org.uk/LibrarymenofWW1/Pages/default.aspx The Library Men of WW1]: a collection of letters from 11 Belfast librarians who served in the British Army.
  
 
* [http://cymru1914.org/en/home Cymru 1914, The Welsh Experience of the First World War] includes some diaries, photographs, letters and memoirs
 
* [http://cymru1914.org/en/home Cymru 1914, The Welsh Experience of the First World War] includes some diaries, photographs, letters and memoirs
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* [http://www.herefordshirehistory.org.uk/archive/herefordshire-in-the-great-war Herefordshire in the Great War]
 
* [http://www.herefordshirehistory.org.uk/archive/herefordshire-in-the-great-war Herefordshire in the Great War]
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* {{Cite TNA|http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3852|CAB 45}}, official historian's papers, includes personal diaries and letters that were used to write the British Official History.
  
 
* [http://worldwar1veterans.blogspot.co.uk/p/veteran-index.html World War 1 Veterans 1914-1918 blog]: a collection of interviews with veterans conducted by Paul Nixon in the 1980s.
 
* [http://worldwar1veterans.blogspot.co.uk/p/veteran-index.html World War 1 Veterans 1914-1918 blog]: a collection of interviews with veterans conducted by Paul Nixon in the 1980s.
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[https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/it-s-just-hell-here-now "It's just hell here now"] is an Anzac Day post from the Alexander Turnbull Library that shows what can be learnt from individual diaries.
 
[https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/it-s-just-hell-here-now "It's just hell here now"] is an Anzac Day post from the Alexander Turnbull Library that shows what can be learnt from individual diaries.
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[http://www.sincewritingyoulast.co.nz/ Since writing you last] is a collection of digitized letters from Invercargill City Libraries and Archives.
  
 
=== American personal narratives ===
 
=== American personal narratives ===
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Images and recordings that aren't personal narratives but could be matched to units or used on other pages.
 
Images and recordings that aren't personal narratives but could be matched to units or used on other pages.
  
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* The US National Archives has some large collections of WW1 photos, many of which mention unit names in the catalogue descriptions:
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** [https://catalog.archives.gov/id/533461 American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs, 1917 - 1918]
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** [https://catalog.archives.gov/id/533104 British Photographs of World War I, 1914 - 1918]
 
* Royal Armouries online collections includes [https://collections.royalarmouries.org/first-world-war Arms of the First World War], with photos and catalogue descriptions of weapons.
 
* Royal Armouries online collections includes [https://collections.royalarmouries.org/first-world-war Arms of the First World War], with photos and catalogue descriptions of weapons.
 
* [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/listing/object-205015340 Imperial War Museum: A H T Andrew's photos]: a large collection of photos taken while he was a medical officer with [[29th Division, UK]] at Gallipoli, but also showing many other units.
 
* [http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/listing/object-205015340 Imperial War Museum: A H T Andrew's photos]: a large collection of photos taken while he was a medical officer with [[29th Division, UK]] at Gallipoli, but also showing many other units.

Revision as of 11:27, 11 June 2017

The letters, diaries, memoirs etc listed below could be linked to specific military units, but each name needs to be researched to find out exactly which unit they were in at the time. Can you help? Pick a name or document below, and try to find their military records to show which battalion they were in.

Here are some resources on researching World War One records to get you started.

Individual items

These names need to be matched to individual units so they can be added to its page. If you can find out which units these people were in, and send in your links to have them added to the wiki. If you're working on someone's record, you can also edit the wiki to add a note saying so. Remove the name below once it's been added to a regiment or battalion page.


  • Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS. Afr. s. 1715 (168A) (Box 10): papers of Brigadier M.S. Lush, who served in the Sudan Political Service, 1914-1945.
  • Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS. Afr. s. 1715 (103) (Box 5): papers of Sir Angus Gillan, who served in the Sudan Political Service and took part in the Darfur campaign in 1916.
  • Louis Barthas (ed. Edward M. Strauss), Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 (Yale University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0300191592) is a translation of the diaries of French soldier Louis Barthas. Which unit was he in?
  • Anzac Live has 'interactive' posts based on letters and diaries from various men and women.
  • FIELD HOSPITAL & FLYING COLUMN. Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia by Violetta Thurstan.
  • Ely, Dinsmore, 1894-1918. 'Diary letters of Dinsmore Ely, edited by his father, Dr. James O. Ely'. Library of Congress via Internet Archive. American pilot.
  • DeWitt C. Ellinwood Jr. (ed.), Between Two Worlds: A Rajput Officer in the Indian Army, 1905–21. Based on the Diary of Amar Singh of Jaipur (University Press of America, 2005, ISBN 0-7618-3113-4). Which unit did Amar Singh serve in?

Collections of items

  • A massive list of 'Diaries, Memorials, Personal Reminiscences' compiled by volunteers of the World War I Military History List (WWI-L). Pick a name, find out which unit they were with, and add them to the battalion/regiment page!
From their blog post '(Re)Discovering the Great War', 'The Wellcome Library has digitized over 130,000 pages of correspondence, personal and field diaries and reports, photographs and memoirs associated with the allied medical services during World War I. Drawn from material presented to the Royal Army Medical Corps Museum and Archive (now the Army Medical Services Museum Trust), the collection covers virtually every sphere of operations including the Balkan Front, the Dardanelles, East Africa, India, Italy, Malta, Mesopotamia and the Middle East, Russia, and South West Africa, as well as the Western and British Home fronts.'
  • The Great War Archive contains memoirs, letters and diaries, each of which could be linked to an Allied battalion or regiment.
  • An archive of transcribed war diary (Kriegstagebuch), letters and blogs includes a list of diaries from Weltkrieg / The Great War
  • The Liddle Collection, Leeds University Library. Includes personal papers of over 4,000 people who experienced the First World War, and over 750 sound recordings and transcripts of interviews about experiences of the First World War.
  • Sharon Ouditt, Women Writers of the First World War: An Annotated Bibliography (Routledge, 2014). ISBN 978-0415755498. Includes personal narratives of war experiences, and guides to archive collections.

Australian personal narratives

The Australian War Memorial's Anzac Connections lists 188 (at the time of writing) 'Biographies including private records and diaries'

The State Library of NSW has a collection of WWI diaries and letters online. Can you link the authors to their battalion page?

The SLNSW diaries have been analysed and visualised by Jaume Nualart Vilaplana as part of his PhD. You can explore them via the topics Personal, War, Military life, Travelling and The accidental tourist.

A user list of Great War diaries, letters, reminiscences on Trove (not all diaries may be available online)

State Library of Queensland HistoryPin collection for women in WWI: 'Honouring the contribution of Queensland women during the First World War, both at the home front and the war front'.

British and Irish personal narratives

  • The National Archives of the UK (TNA): CAB 45, official historian's papers, includes personal diaries and letters that were used to write the British Official History.

Canadian personal narratives

If you're interested in finding records for Canadian battalions, the Canadian Great War project has a form to search for War Diaries by unit.

Oral Histories of the First World War: Veterans 1914-1918 based on the CBC's radio broadcast In Flanders Fields, a series of one-on-one interviews with veterans of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, which aired from November 11, 1964 to March 7, 1965. The website is organized into seven themes: Second Ypres, Vimy Ridge, War in the Air, The Somme, Trench Warfare, Passchendaele, Perspectives on War. Contains images, interview audio and transcripts.

New Zealand personal narratives

Personal Histories of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles (see also the sitemap).

Diaries listed in the National Library of New Zealand's WW100 digitisation project

Off at last the goodbye would have been too awful is a blog post featuring diaries discovered during digitisation at the Alexander Turnbull Library.

"It's just hell here now" is an Anzac Day post from the Alexander Turnbull Library that shows what can be learnt from individual diaries.

Since writing you last is a collection of digitized letters from Invercargill City Libraries and Archives.

American personal narratives

Veterans History Project

Indian personal narratives

  • David Omissi (ed.), Indian Voices of the Great War: Soldiers' Letters, 1914-1918, (Palgrave Macmillan, 1999). ISBN 0333751450. Compilation of Indian soldiers' letters.
  • British Library IOR/L/MIL/5/825-828: Reports of the Censor of Indian Mails in France. These reports contain many extracts of Indian soldiers' letters. Page scans are available through the "Browse this collection" link on the catalogue record page.

French personal narratives

Related Media

Images and recordings that aren't personal narratives but could be matched to units or used on other pages.

  • Berliner Lautarchiv British & Commonwealth recordings: sound recordings of British prisoners of war in Germany. A selection of 66 of these recordings can be heard at British Library Sound Archive website. These need matching to units.
  • The Illustrated First World War website contains a large collection of photos from the archives of the Illustrated London News. Free to view but all rights reserved.

Research in progress

Add notes or links here for diaries you need help researching, missing links from the sites above, etc.