BST and record-keeping

Hi all,

it is known that His Britannic Majesty's
government first introduced 'British Summer
Time' in April 1916.

Well, I know this is a simple matter apparently,
(surely it is to experts) but I cannot help
wondering how (and if) the change affected
the record-keeping rules of the British units
overseas. Here are two of the questions
regarding the matter that are puzzling me
harder.

1) Did the RFC/RNAS units based overseas
record their work in GMT until April 1916,
or did they adopt the specific LT's of the
regions where they were serving?
2) In the case they used GMT, did they
switch to BST, or did they kept on recording
times the old way?

Thank you in advance.

Bertand

[Purser]

A good question, and one that has puzzled me too !

The standard reporting time used by the Royal Navy was GMT, but it seems that ships/units would change to local time if considered appropriate. Presumably this would have been for their local records only, rather than reports made to the Admiralty.

In the present day the "official time" of HM Forces is still GMT (or should I say Coordinated Universal Time !), which is indicated by the suffix Z - so 1530Z is three thirty in the afternoon GMT.

The British Summer Time Act came into force on 21 May 1916.

Hope this helps.