Reading and interpreting war patrol reports

[Lance Dean]

My initial, rough attempt at putting up war patrol #1 for the Drum :

http://www.drum228.org/warpatrol01.html

What a mess.  Mark Allen, I salute you for going through the mess.  It's frustrating!  Just when I get a nice template set up to run through the remaining 12 war patrols, I find that every one of them are formatted slightly different.

Anyway, there are a few things I'd like to know about the patrol reports.  Silly questions, but that's what I'm here to ask.

When writing times, what are all the letters for?  Like:
KING
W
L
LOVE
NIKO
Y

I'm assuming this is some kind of time zone?

More questions to follow.  Feel free to jump in with your questions too.

[MWALLEN]

When writing times, what are all the letters for?

It is time zone designations...but I don't know what they refer to.  If I remember right, when the Batfish changed a time zone, the letter designated to that zone changed.  I can't remember what, if anything, happened when crossing the international date line.

Oh, nice job on the report.  I wish the Batfish had patrol reports that short.  Even Patrol #2 where they didn't fire a torpedo had more stuff than your first one.

I couldn't use a template, I had to do each one by hand.  A long and tedious 3 months to transcribe it all, but I think it was worth the effort.  Your's will also.

Mark A.

[Lance Dean]

Well, I do see as the war progressed, the war patrol reports got longer and much more detailed.  They only get longer....   

One down, twelve to go!

[MWALLEN]

One thing you are going to need is a link back to your main war patrol page from the patrol report.  If it's there, I don't see it.

Yeah, I can always use the "back" button...but, as my daughter says...I'm just sayin'   

[JTheotonio]

Try this out Lance

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/graphics/TimeZoneMap0802.pdf

If the letters are referring to time zones, then this map will help.  I can plae W at Hawaii, K is in line with New Guinea, Australia, to western Japan line, L is Solomon Islands, and H is the Philippines.  Of course the time zones are not in exact straight lines, running from north to south poles.

Is King referring to K? and Love referring to L?  Then these are all in the same general area.  Niko if referring to N is off the eastern side of Africa - then it makes no sense.

Patrol areas would be bound (loosely) by Long and Lat's and can be cut up into boxed areas today.

[JTheotonio]

Here is another look at time zones

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/info/timezone.htm

I did not know that I was located in Romeo time zone

[Lance Dean]

One thing you are going to need is a link back to your main war patrol page from the patrol report.  If it's there, I don't see it.

Yeah, I can always use the "back" button...but, as my daughter says...I'm just sayin'   

I agree, I just haven't made one yet. 

I was going to keep the same layout as the other pages with the navigational buttons on the left side.  But after I got started I realized I was going to need 100% of the screen width to put all the information down.

[Lance Dean]

Thanks for the updates on the time zones.  This stuff only gets more complicated as the war progresses.

#2 is done though - http://www.drum228.org/warpatrol02.html

[JTheotonio]

I checked with an old Lt Commander, who was not familar with WWII patrol reports but said that in later years the (L) meant that the time was local time, and did not refer to a time zone.  King and Niko he had not a clue about.

So it gets a little fuzzier now that it is clear(er)! 

[MWALLEN]

Here are a couple of links...the 2nd one has a map that shows the different zones

http://www.timeanddate.com/library/abbreviations/timezones/military/

http://www.militaryspot.com/military-time.htm

[JTheotonio]

Could Kiko actually be Kilo?  If the report was scanned using an optical character reader, it could have made an error, which is common.  Hum!

No phonic alphabet used Kiko - ever

[Lance Dean]

Could Kiko actually be Kilo?  If the report was scanned using an optical character reader, it could have made an error, which is common.  Hum!

No phonic alphabet used Kiko - ever

Sadly for Mark and I, the patrol reports are not in text format.  They are exact copies as images.  Sometimes things are hard to read and you have to study things to figure out what is being said.

And you're right, it's not "Niko" but "Mike" ... duh.  Darn Ms look like Ns and e looks like o easily.

[JTheotonio]

Mike fitsx then.  But if you had an OCR program (optical character reader) it would read the scan and put it into text.  Lots of mistakes, but it would be a lot easier to translate.

[Gunner]

I'll be honest.  I'm a big believer in using Adobe PDF.

I've had all five WWII Patrol Reports and all available post-war patrol/surveillance patrol reports posted on the web for three years.  They are consistently among my top downloads.

[Lance Dean]

All I know to say right now is...

!@#$% the AIRCRAFT CONTACTS!!

What a pain!!