War Diary of 1st Battalion Canadian Scottish Regiment, Vol. 57, May 1, 1944 to May 31, 1944

Public

The war diaries are official records kept by the Battalions during a one month period. They contain the daily orders, correspondence, newsletters, and an intelligence log detailing troop activities, locations, and weather conditions. The war diaries detail the activities and movement of the 1st Battalion from training in Canada and England to active duty on the Western Front and their return to Victoria in January 1946. This diary was kept while at Hiltingbury Common, England. It has entries about dropping off their dog mascot Wallace at the Royal Scot Depot just outside of Edinburgh to be taken care of while the Battalion is in action, lifting the state of isolation put in place last month, bicycle training, organizing and prioritizing kit to be taken into the assault, an informal inspection from General Dwight D. Eisenhower where he spoke to some officers and rank in file, all ranks having to march at least 5 miles a day, all officers and personnel riding in or driving vehicles taking a beach markings demonstration, enjoying Pte. Fahrni's master accordion skills in the evenings, training in the clearing and laying of mine fields, a lecture on the history of the honours of the battalion being able to wear the Oak Leaf battle badge, prepping and painting equipment and weapons for loading on to vehicles, a trial loading of the vehicles with nothing but the most essential equipment is being taken in to the assault no person will carry any personal comforts owing to the extra weight, officers discussing the administrative order for exercise "Overlord", the officers being up to their neck planning exercise "Overlord" never before in world history has an operation been so carefully planned, no more leave being granted anticipating the camp being sealed the next day, sealing the camp and having everyone attend an extensive briefing on the exercise "Overlord" including examining aerial photos, the communication plan and medical set up, giving each man 200 francs as an emergency measure and exchanging all pound notes to francs as no one is allowed to take pound sterling notes into action, and waiting for the assault to happen, among other activities and information. Includes appendices covering orders, strength returns (daily & weekly), training syllabi, administrative memos, exercises, training for weapons, bicycles and street fighting, progress reports, range parties, five sets of film negatives of soldiers and Wallace their St. Bernard mascot, and Lt/Col F.N. Cabeldu's address to his battalion.

In Collection:
Creator Subject Language Identifier
  • Vol. 57
Date created Resource type Rights statement Extent
  • 80 pages
Geographic coverage Coordinates
  • 50.99833, -1.38544
Physical repository Collection
  • Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary’s) Collection
Provenance
  • Transferred to UVic Special Collections from BC Archives, March 2006.
Provider Genre Archival item identifier
  • Series 11. 4.17
Fonds title Fonds identifier Is referenced by Date digitized
  • February 18, 2019 to February 26, 2019
Technical note
  • Scanned on Plustek Opticbook at 600 dpi TIFF. May 1944 includes envelope containing 5 strips of film negatives. Scanned envelope front for context. In the absence of a proper film/negative scanner, the strips were laid on the flatbed and covered with white acid-free paper to scan. All five in one image.
DOI

This page supports the Zotero and Mendeley browser extensions simply click on the extension widget in your browser to save the objects citation.

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_001.tif 2020-01-07 Public
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_002.tif 2020-01-07 Public
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_003.tif 2020-01-07 Public
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_004.tif 2020-01-07 Public
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_005.tif 2020-01-07 Public
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_006.tif 2020-01-07 Public
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_007.tif 2020-01-07 Public
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_008.tif 2020-01-07 Public
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_009.tif 2020-01-07 Public
file details WarDiaries_May44_Box4_File17_76-25_010.tif 2020-01-07 Public