War Diary of 1st Battalion Canadian Scottish Regiment, Vol. 60, August 1, 1944 to August 31, 1944
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 Colomby-sure Thaon, Caen, Bretteville, St. Pierre, Pontigny, Falaise, Brionne, and Rouen, France. It has entries about continuing with the reorganization break and doing some training and organized sports, observing old men, women and children harvesting wheat in the surrounding fields, visiting the beach where they arrived and noting the differences from then to now, dealing with teeth and feet, giving men range time to get used to any rifles they picked up from casualties after their own were damaged or lost, getting ready for a move back into battle and discussing their view of death, the C.O. giving instructions as to the next operation, dealing with dust from the roads, several men getting dysentery, being constantly bombarded by shells, two enemy soldiers surrendered and reported that their comrades were low on food, water, and morale, suffering losses from friendly fire from Canadian planes and them only stopping when the artillery spotter planes signaled the airmen of their error, having the as of yet most intense and persistent barrage laid down by the enemy, issues identifying between ally and enemy tanks, suffering heavy casualties and burying the dead, hearing reports of mass surrenderings of the enemy, getting some treats from the Legion, a warning about watching out for enemy troops possibly dressed as civilians being left behind to carry out sabotage and demolitions, and regularly encountering friendly civilians who line the roads and give them flowers and sometimes cognac, among other activities and information. Includes appendices covering intelligences log, situation reports, battle log, maps, aerial photos, traces, defence plans, field sketches, personal accounts of battle, casualties, orders, operations, and field messages.
- In Collection:
- Vol. 60
- 211 pages
- 49.26568, -0.41032
- 49.6544, -1.52884
- 47.90529, 3.71198
- 48.89217, -0.19527
- 49.19553, 0.7151
- 49.44313, 1.09932
- Canadian Scottish Regiment (Princess Mary’s) Collection
- Transferred to UVic Special Collections from BC Archives, March 2006.
- Series 11. 4.21
- February 18, 2019 to February 26, 2019
- Scanned on Plustek Opticbook at 600 dpi TIFF. Aug 1944 appendices include aerial photos and negatives. The negatives are not able to be clearly scanned on our equipment but each was backed with white paper to provide some level of identifiability. Recommend re-scanning with proper equipment.
- DOI
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