70th Infantry Brigade War Diary April 1940.

70th Brigade War Diary April 1940

No copy of the Brigade War Diary for April is contained in the file covering the relevant period of 1940.

The method of filing War Diaries by Theatre of Operations means that, given the timing of the Brigade’s movement to France to join the B.E.F. the first half of the month should have fallen under the “Home Service” reference of WO 166, probably the file numbered WO 166/968, which is where the pages covering the period up to March 1940 are located.

The second half of the month should then have been filed under file WO 167 – the B.E.F. sequence. The files covering May were referenced WO 167/385 for the Brigade HQ, and it is assumed that is where the papers for late April should have been.

Readers of other pages will realise that this is not the only example of crucial periods being found missing from War Diary files.

While efforts will continue to try and track down the absent documents it should be possible to gain an appreciation of what was happening to a particular unit by studying the War Diaries of superior and subordinate formations, where these are available.

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