War Diaries question

[ang1985]

I received my latest addition of WDYTYA magazine today and there was a section on D-Day and WW2 military records.. In this article, it said how to order WW2 military records and mentioned war diaries.. my question is this. I have a relation who was in the Lincolnshire Regiment who died in a battle following D-Day called Operation Charnwood.. I have his military records and I have visited his grave in Ranville War Cemetery.. I have looked on the National Archives page and they do have diaries for the Lincolnshire Regiment.. Realistically what are the chances these war diaries will tell me something I don’t already know? I did some volunteer work transcribing WW1 diaries once, are the WW2 diaries similar? Many thanks.

[MaxD]

As you probably saw in your transcription work, the usefulness of war diaries varies immensely and those very few I have seen for WW2 seem to be of similar variety. 

One approach may be to contact the Lincoln's museum http://thelincolnshireregiment.org/museum.shtml to see what they have. 

Histories too are worth seeking out although these tend to be written at the divisional level so a history of 3rd Division would give context. There is a large bibliography attached to the Wiki entry for Charnwood (the Anthony Beevor book hardly mentions Charnwood!).

MaxD

[stevej60]

Hi Ang,Max has hit the nail on the head with his point's on war diary's they rarely mention individual
other rank's by name but a couple of thing's you might find useful or at least of interest.I was looking
to find information on the death of my Brother-in -law's Grandad in Italy,I noted he was buried alongside
 two other comrade's sharing their date of death,checking the unit's war diary it recorded on that date
one of the battery's truck's ran off the road,overturned and three other rank's were killed so that was the
explanation of his passing.Another thing worth a try is to contact the CWGC and ask if there is anything else on file for your relation,My uncle was killed in France in 1940 in an incident recorded in the  9th DLI
war diary when the company billet received a direct hit, over twenty rank's were killed that day and I noticed all those not listed as missing( my uncle is recorded as missing) were buried a few miles away in Lille.
The CWGC replied to my enquiry by telling me that after the war the Grave's unit moved seventeen bodies
from the village churchyard and concentrated them in Lille south including four that could not be identified.