2./ KG 60 28.11.1942

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by Matti Salonen

German documents are relatively easy, because the only anomaly is German summer time. But what about other countries? Did UK authorities use always GMT? ...

Finally, Merry Xmas to you and to every TOCH member, who is reading this,

Merry Christmas, to Matti and all!

I have a partial answer to your question about times used in wartime reports, Matti. First, there is a helpful reference for the dates when Germany changed the clocks during the war, on page xxxiii of the book U-Boat Attack Logs: A Complete Record of Warship Sinkings from Original Sources, 1939-1945 by Daniel Morgan and Bruce Taylor

"Times are given in the twenty-four-hour clock, both in the original KTBs and in the translations. U-boat timekeeping was based on the Kriegsmarine’s adoption of German official or ‘legal’ time (Deutsche Gesetzliche Zeit – DGZ) which varied according to the season as well as for other reasons. The variants were Mittlere Greenwich-Zeit (MGZ – Greenwich Mean Time/GMT), Mitteleuropäische Zeit (MEZ – Central European Time: GMT +1) and Deutsche Sommerzeit (DSZ – German Summer Time: GMT +2). The timekeeping observed by the U-Boot-Waffe during the Second World War was as follows, though it should not be regarded as absolute since there were departures from it at certain times and in certain waters, not to mention a number of irregularities specific to individual U-boats.

Dates Timekeeping
3 September 1939–1 April 1940 either MGZ (GMT) or MEZ (GMT +1)
1 April 1940–2 November 1942 DSZ (GMT +2)
2 November 1942–29 March 1943 MEZ (GMT +1)
29 March–4 October 1943 DSZ (GMT +2)
4 October 1943–3 April 1944 MEZ (GMT +1)
3 April–2 October 1944 DSZ (GMT +2)
2 October 1944–2 April 1945 MEZ (GMT +1)
2 April 1945 onwards DSZ (GMT +2)"

In July 2016, Mark Hood made a very helpful post on the RAF Commands forum, which included pages from the book RAF Records in the PRO by Christina Goulter, Simon Fowler, Roy Conyers Nesbit and Peter Elliott

The images from that book made available by Mark show the dates when the times were changed both in Britain and Germany, and state that Italy conformed to German time when it was an Axis ally.

There is also the online file entitled Time calculation 1940-1945, originally written by Rob de Bruin. This extract is a translation contained within Jaap Woortman’s Handbook for the (re)search of Luftwaffe personnel dating from 2001.

Warm regards,

Dan

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Thanks Matti for your comprehensive answer, no critics as I know fairly well how blurry the date subject could be, especially regarding night losses. But even for day losses I have seen cases of documents where I am unable to say if the day shown is the one of the loss or of the report of it.

And thanks Dan, a good summary of the various ressources available online about hours used in WWII.

[Stig Jarlevik]

Originally Posted by Dan History

Merry Christmas, to Matti and all!

There is also the online file entitled Time calculation 1940-1945, originally written by Rob de Bruin. This extract is a translation contained within Jaap Woortman’s Handbook for the (re)search of Luftwaffe personnel dating from 2001.

Warm regards,

Dan

Dan

The site here does not work for me, but I wonder if it is this one I once downloaded "somewhere". I attach the list to my post for those interested. It is quite handy really.

What strikes me as a bit odd is why Britain chose to operate most of the war on a sort of non GMT time frame? I thought the whole point by having Greenwich in Britain was at least one nation should use the GMT....

Cheers
Stig