War Diary of 1st Battalion Canadian Scottish Regiment, Vol. 58, June 1, 1944 to June 30, 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 and the Normandy Coast, Pierrepont, Secqueville-en-Bessin, Putot-en-Bessin, Le Hamel and Rots, France. It has entries about waiting for exercise "Overlord" to happen, the attitude from the men being mostly that they were just going on another exercise, being aboard a ship and prepping for the assault, getting specific orders about their objective being the severing of the Tilly-Caen railway in Normandy, messages being read over the P.A. system from General Eisenhower, General Montgomery, and General Crerar, the troops turning in early to get all the rest possible, waking up to face the greatest day in their military career and there not being any signs of jitters during breakfast which would be their last proper meal for days, fleets of A.L.C.'s dropping off the troops on the French beach, encountering enemy fire from mortars and snipers and suffering casualties, the battalion facing heavy fire and encountering the enemy while advancing, the battalion taking around 200 prisoners as they advance, the enemy rapidly retreating leaving supplies behind, the battalion carrying on through the town and sampling various wines and ciders brought to them from the local inhabitants, waiting for permission to advance to the battalion's final objective, listing 1 officer killed and 3 wounded and 22 troops being killed, with 58 wounded and 1 missing from their first day, spent their fist night in France waiting for a tank attack that never came, prepping because of rumours of paratroopers landing, encountering snipers and dealing with the ones they could find as snipers should be dealt with, taking prisoners and encountering and dealing with small groups of enemy in route, setting up camp on a farm whose inhabitants were not overly pleased, hearing rumors of Panzers in the area and waiting for them to attack, relieving the Royal Winnipeg Rifles after they suffered considerable casualties and engaging in a successful counter-attack, lists of casualties for each day, supplementing the "Compo" rations with fresh vegetables from abandoned farms and meat from livestock killed by mines or artillery fire, noticing that a fairly large percentage of enemy projectiles fail to explode, the troops constructing superior types of slit trenches, taking the opportunity on a warm day to do laundry, helping refugees get to a camp and giving the children candy, encountering and engaging with the enemy in various ways, participating in a gigantic operation called "Epsom" as the pivot position, and the battalion headquarters suffering a direct hit from a shell killing and wounding officers, among other activities and information. Includes appendices covering exercise "Overlord", intelligence log, situation reports, maps and aerial photos, patrol orders, traces, defence plans, shelling and bombing reports, personal accounts of the attacks, correspondence, causalities, and movement orders.

In Collection:
Creator Subject Language Identifier
  • Vol. 58
Date created Resource type Rights statement Extent
  • 192 pages
Geographic coverage Coordinates
  • 50.99833, -1.38544
  • 49.19906, 0.49988
  • 48.89481, -0.32616
  • 49.23333, -0.5185
  • 49.21217, -0.54114
  • 49.20778, -0.47778
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. 4.18
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. Jun 1944 last 12 pages held together with a straight pin. Left pin in place for first scan, removed to avoid folding paper, and replaced after.
DOI

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