National Archives UK - digital microfilm project

[Varese2002]

The National Archives UK has started a digital microfilm project. The National Archives possesses a very large quantity of microfilms, most containing collections which are not indexed (that means, when you seek something you start at the beginning and end at the end, looking at all pages for something useful).

The intention is to digitize the whole microfilm collection. The aims are to increase their accessibility and in the end to away with the microfilm readers. The digital microfilms can be downloaded as big PDF's, which can be browsed.

Information can be found here.

There are a few sample PDF's which can be downloaded at no cost (!), interesting from the view of the Forum Aerodrome is

WO 144 War Office: Inter-Allied Armistice Commission: War Diary, and Despatches of Chief of British Delegation 1918-1920

The Inter-Allied Armistice Commission was formed on 12 November 1918 by Marshal Foch and consisted of delegations from the American, Belgian, British and French armies, and representatives of the German Staff. Sir Douglas Haig nominated Lieutenant General Sir Richard Haking to be chief of the British delegation.

The commission was to investigate and resolve any details in connection with the classes of the Armistice that were not settled when the instrument was signed. The subjects to be dealt with were the repatriation of military and civil prisoners; handing over of war material; taking over of depots and stores and the handing over of locomotives, wagons and lorries.

The administrative functions of the commission were extended beyond the original instructions, not only on the Western Front, but also on the Eastern Front and Alsace-Lorraine.

On 10 July 1919, the various duties of the commission were officially recognised and defined by the Allied political leaders in Paris as follows:

(1) The Inter-Allied Commission will remain the machinery of communication between the allied governments and the Germans until the coming into force of the Treaty of Peace

(2) As soon as the treaty has been ratified, communication between the allied governments and the German will pass through the channel of diplomatic representatives appointed to the respective capitals.

The commission was dissolved on 13 January 1920, three days after the ratification of the Treaty of Peace. You can download the reports made by the commission between 1918 and 1920.

As said, you start browing at the beginning looking page for page.

As a sample I have included one page



Interesting are the remarks about the selling of German aeroplanes and the transport of machines from Belgium. You see that the document is easily readable, despite a scan from microfilm (high tech )

Cheers

Kees

[josquin]

Kees

Thank you for calling our attention to this excellent reference source
and its planned online development.

Regards,

Josquin

[Varese2002]

I realized that I made the example of a page from the Inter-Allied Control Commission too small. Excerpted is here a part (paragraph 5) of the page of December 18, 1918 already presented (too) small:



I would be interested in seeing the pictures of the removal of aeroplanes by tramway from occupied Belgium, as seen by Belgian Intelligence personnel in German (news)papers. As they could see it in 1918, surely we could see those newspaper pictures in 2009

Cheers

Kees

[YavorD]

Thank you, Kees!
It will be great if such a document will be available as a whole.
Looking through brief descriptions, I already retrieved two reports concerning Inter-Allied Control Commission findings in Bulgaria. There are some interesting observations and descriptions of example equipment found but the list of aeroplanes and equipment seized and destroyed is not included. It should be hidden somewhere between tausends of other files
Regards,
Yavor

[await]

I stumbled across the British National Archive (formerly Public Record Office) online document service while conducting some research. They do have a fragmentary listing of available air combat reports. To see what they have, go to "Other Records" and click on "Military & Defence." One cannot view the individual reports. One must pay for any given group and then wait to see what one gets via e-mail. I ordered one group of six reports, which cost me $5.12. One of them was of use to me, so I consider it money well spent.