WW2 Coordinates in Unit Journals

Hi all,

I am doing some research on the death of an Army officers whose grave I have adopted.
While reading the Unit Journal I came across coordinates like: "L Co at 860984; K Co at 863984; G Co at 866984".
How can I relate this to coordinates we use nowadays? Do I need WW2 maps for this?
Thank you

Best regards,
Max

 

This link will get you to the "Coordinates Translator" and once there, it is pretty much self-explanatory: http://www.echodelta.net/mbs/eng-translator.php

My biggest problem with using it is that it only shows major rivers to establish the "lay of the land" and I'm not that familiar with European waterways. Showing some major cities would certainly help me.

Good luck, Steve

 

You can take the resulting "modern" coordinates of latitude and longitude that the Coordinates Translator gives you and then plug those into Google Maps, if you are looking to see where major cities lie, in regards to your position.

 

It doesn't work. The coordinates given in my original post should be around Schoppen, Belgium.

 

Sounds like you probably have the wrong "2 letter" code that goes in front of the 6 digit location from the journal. If you use vP860984", on the Nord de Guerre Zone map, you will be a little west of Schoppen.

Once you get there, you change switch between "map" and "satellite" and zoom in or out on the bottom map.

 

Correct, but in the same report the position of L Company is at 907013, and if I use that, the Nord de Guerre Zone map gives a location south of Luxembourg...

 

Well, if all the companies were in the same immediate vicinity on the same date/time, it could be a typo or something similar.

Can you post the page you're looking at or at least the section you're referencing for L Company? I'm just guessing now.

 

Military Coordinates aren't always accurate in the ww2 reports.

I use Google earth to do my mapping, keeping both the coordinator map and GE open.

 

They were close to the border between two grids. Try using vK907013 for L Company and see if that position makes sense.

 

You got it, Tom! About 2km NE of Schoppen. Those grids are smaller than I thought.

 

Yes, I got it! I have to use both the vP and vK grids. See result. The red markers are L Company positions.

 

I've run into this problem a few times myself. With the difficulty in getting the coordinates to work, it occurred to me that it might be due to the units operating near a grid boundary. I looked up the coordinate vP860984 and saw it was near the boundary with vK. Then it was a matter of trying it out and it seemed to be in the correct location.

 

I am happy that I could be of some help to you, Max. I like that map view with the terrain features.

 

Thanks a lot! I have adopted the grave of an officer who was killed in Schoppen, and I am helping the family to reconstruct the events of January 1945. He was awarded the Silver Star two days before his death. Although my organization tries to preserve the history of the entire 16th Infantry Regiment during World War II, I have never looked into a day of battle so closely myself.

 

Br careful using the "coordinates translator", there must be a hiccup somewhere, the result is sometimes far off from what you get when you look up the "Nord de Guerre" - coordinates from the AAR on an original map!

 

It is good to know that possible issue, but unless one has access to the original map(s) there is not much one can do about it. Or is there?

 

The calculator warns of a possible error of 1000 yards.

Might be possible to estimate error if the map coordinates of a nearby village or a road junction are given in AAR. Run the calculator to see how close to that village or intersection the calculator plots the spot. Not sure if that error varies by grid or within a grid (say, smaller error near grid center; increasing near grid border).

The map coordinates represent 10km squares. So, the L Co positions, 860984 and 907013 are about 5.5km apart. (Thanks, Pythagorus!)

Might be easier if you look at 860984 as 860/984. I think the first three digits measure easty-westy distance; the last three show northy-southy.

When moving from '984' to '013' it was clear to me that a sector boundary had been crossed.

 

Hello Max. I realized that I've forgotten to thank you for adopting the grave of and honoring the American officer. I continue to be amazed by how the European people show their gratitude to our war dead.

A salute to you, sir!

Steve

 

Thank you! It is because of those guys in the cemeteries (and of course the ones who lived) we live in a free Europe today. It is a debt we can never fully repay, but we won't stop trying!

 

Thanks for this! I requested an original WWII map at NARA, so this will make things much easier. Let's see if the calculator has an error.

You are right about the 5.5km. The two locations are 5.2km apart when using the calculator. Could be true, because 860984 is the location of L Company, 23rd Infantry, which was in support of the 1st Infantry Division. The report in question did not specify that it was L Co, 23rd Inf, but another report did.