Time difference between German and American reports

[Kurtl12]

Gentlemen,

was there any time difference between german and american reports of the time period WW2? I wonder if both sides had summer time or not. Thanks for the answer. - Kurtl

[Jim P.]

I've run into the same problem with times on a number of occasions. German time is an hour earlier than UK time I believe, and have seen such conflicts occur with reports for the same incident from both sides, at least sometimes. I suspect that the USAAF was probably using UK time and the same conflicts might occur. Just a guess on my part - it can be rather confusing.

[bill norman]

Kurt,
UK and CET hours of the clock differed in several ways -and at different times of the year - during WWII. Send me your e-mail address by PM and I'll send you a table that will answer all of your questions.

BN (www.billnorman.co.uk

[John Manrho]

Yes, for instance US FG's used GMT time and German units MEZ time.....as an example, combats between 56th FG and IV./JG 54 on 21.9.1944 were an hour different.....according the 56th FG at 15.15 hrs and according IV./JG 54 at 16.15 hrs.....

During the war summertime etc confuses things also and delta's might be +1 hrs or +0 hrs pending the date. The internet should be able to clarify that....

John

[Snautzer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_Time

note WET for winter months

[Jaap Woortman]

Here the answer for your time differences question between the Netherlands, Germany and the U.K.

Jaap

[Nick Beale]

I work on the basis that an individual unit (e.g. a fighter squadron) will normally report using the local time. A higher echelon drawing together material from both sides of the line (e.g. Ultra and radio monitoring reports) will generally standardise everything on GMT, regardless of the time of year.

[Steve Coates]

There are a couple of interesting pages on this in PRO Reader's Guide No.8 'RAF Records in the PRO' explaining the differences between GMT, BST, BDST, CET and GST and more importantly what applied when. If you can PM me your personal e-mail, I'll get them scanned and sent.

[Kurtl12]

So how was it on July 8th, 1944 over Austrian territory? Germans used GST (Greenwich Summer Time) which was GMT + 02:00hrs. What time did the pilots of 15 USAAF used? Was it equal to british local time?
British local time was (July 8th): BDST (British Double Summer Time) = GMT + 02:00 hrs. So it would be the same like german local time, right?

[Steve Coates]

GST = German Summer Time. By and large RAF unit records use local time as you will have now seen from what I sent you but please also bear in mind Nick's point about GMT. I'm not so sure about American records. As you say GST = BDST in July 1944.