Obtaining war diary records

Does anybody know how to get hold of a war diary of a certain unit?
You may have seen my post on Charles Kenneth Beer who was wounded in action during operation Houndforce, Albania on 9.10.44 with 40 R.M Commando. I would love to know what his troop/section's objective was at the time of his wounding what they came up against etc. Im sure that officers would have to make a report after contact/combat especially if men were wounded/KIA, surely these reports or diaries are stored somewhere???

Any help pointers appreciated

The War Diaries are held in the National Archives at Kew and are available for the public to read & copy.
Unfortunately they are not yet on-line.

I have included a list of documents, held at the NA, that are relevent to The Commandos - hope this is of use.

Nick

Very helpful, Nick - thanks!

Any idea what's included in DEFE2/1091 - Commandos in Action: Reports?

Cheers NIC, do you know if they plan to digitise them any time soon?

beerie89 wrote:Cheers NIC, do you know if they plan to digitise them any time soon?

Obviously the NA do have a digitisation programme for all records and archives held but progress is long, painsaking and, of course, expensive; plus there are many other factors for the NA to take into consideration (ie Data Protection etc.), so I'm afraid it will be some considerable time before the WWII War Diaries are digitised.

Looking at the Digitisation Programme, I see that one of the longterm, ongoing projects is the digitising of WWI War Diaries so that should tell you that it's going to be a while yet!

However, I would thoroughly recommend a visit to the NA at Kew to browse through the records - it really is an experience not to be missed and having visited once, you will be hooked...

I thought my first visit would be daunting and difficult, but the NA have made it all very easy and the staff are well informed and extremely helpful & friendly (apart from one lady in the cafeteria!) and, everything combined, made my first experience very exciting.
I definately had a great 'buzz' leafing through those original documents, and observing others doing the same...

Nick