War diaries from the Imperial War Museum

Catalogue record

Notes

This current series from Microform Academic Publishers, based on the extensive collections of the IWM in London, comprises the diaries of people involved in the two world wars, chiefly British soldiers, sailors and airmen, but including also chaplains, medical staff and some civilians, as well as soldiers from different countries of the British Empire.
While the holdings of the Department of Documents comprise over 15,000 separate collections of personal papers such as letters, diaries and memoirs, the diaries published in the present series are carefully chosen from the Imperial War Museum's archive based on their significance as primary historical sources, because they represent particularly important first-hand accounts which offer vivid descriptions of the personal experiences of servicemen, women and civilians of the preparations, morale, conditions and fatalities relating to a succession of individual themes. Other selection criteria include such factors as the legibility of a diarist's handwriting, the uniqueness of the document in terms of the events recorded, the desire to be representative of a cross-section of military services and ranks, and literary style. Starting with the soldiers and others whose diaries include the Battle of the Somme, the series continues with a second set, selected and introduced by Anthony Richards, Archivist at the IWM Department of Documents, where the common thread between the diarists is their experience of being taken prisoner during the Great War.
The historical importance of contemporary evidence compared to memoirs and interviews, often composed or conducted long after the event, is recognised in the introduction by Malcolm Brown, Honorary Fellow in First World War Studies, University of Birmingham, to the first group of diaries.
The microfilm edition reproduces the selected war diaries, wherever possible in their entirety, arranged within each broad theme by commissioned officers, other ranks, and non-combatants, and is available ether by standing order or as individual reels. Published alongside the microfilm edition is a set of CD-ROMs, each of which contains carefully selected excerpts from the diaries focusing on individual campaigns.
Accompanying the online reel contents is an introduction by the series' founding general editor, David Jordan, which outlines major themes in WW1.

MAP has permission to offer remote access to images from this collection via niche.britishonlinearchives.co.uk as well as on microfilm.