I’ve recently been helping a friend research an ancestor was killed at Galipoli in 1915. Almost by accident I found that the war diaries for 15 Battalions of the Wiltshire and Berkshire Regiments between 1914 and 1918 are available online at the Salisbury Rifles Museum website.
The War diaries cover the daily summary, normally written up by the Adjutant. The transcriptions on the Rifles Museum website do not include appendices, orders, reports or maps. Men are very rarely mentioned by name, but officers are.
For example, take a look at the entry for 10 August 1915, when my friend’s great-uncle was killed at Galipoli serving with the 5th Battalion of the Wiltshire Regiment. The war diary entry for that day shows that the Battalion suffered very heavy casualties fighting at ANZAC Bay.
War Diaries for the First and Second World Wars are also available to purchase from the Museum’s website.
Handy for researching family history, and much easier than going to Kew and leafing through and transcribing thousands of pages!
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I appreciate all of the help you gave me with this. Its so facinating and I have no idea what I would of done with our help!
your not our!
We should have as much information on line as possible
I agree! Especially in the current climate where museums are strapped for cash, short of staff and resources its surely easier for people to access documents and archives remotely than in person. But then again, digitising documents costs money, and the only people willing to put the money up currently are the charging family history sites…
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