A few months ago, I received a comment on one of my blog posts about Josef’s landing spot. The anonymous individual was writing in reference to the military map code that is contained within the MI5 files on Josef. The file notes that Josef was found at:
(Modified British System)
Grid bearing 135 degrees from Dovehouse Farm. Distance 500 yards. Map Reference 778031 – Sheet 75, 1″=1 mile
I have never been able to find a copy of such a map and the location I have in the earlier blog post is based on my visit to Dovehouse Farm with Winston Ramsey, editor of After the Battle magazine. I believe that he used the 135 degrees and 500 yards distance to get the location of the landing spot.
The anonymous commentator on the blog noted that:
On the internet [there] is a map reference translator that gives accurate modern positions to wartime grid references. It is called the Co-ordinates translator.
And the reference you quote is for [the] British Cassini Grid system. You have to know the two letters (always one in lower case first then a capital) that precede the six numbers, in this case wF, to get the centre of a 100 yd square in which an event occurred. Eight figure references narrow this to a ten yd square, but they are very rare.
A bit of searching yielded the Coordinates Translator website and a translator for the Cassini Grid System (also known as the British Modified System). I can see why the commentator suggested the wF prefix. That would be the grid within which Ramsey is located.
I entered the 778031 coordinates with wF as the two prefix letters and… here’s what we have. Dovehouse Farm is located in the upper left hand corner. The red dot marks Josef’s landing site (as received from Winston Ramsey). The red marker is the location of wF778031.
Red dot marks landing spot of Josef Jakobs.
The commentator said that the coordinates mark the centre point of a 100 yard square but the Cassini system information I’ve found is all metric, so it’s like the centre point of a 100 metre square. I adjusted the map view so that there was a 100 metre scale on the bottom of the map and then used that to add a square (100 m by 100 m) with the coordinates marker in the middle. Yielding this.
Red dot marks landing spot of Josef Jakobs.
I’m not entirely sure that the location marks the exact centre of a 100 m square or if it is marks a corner of a 100 m square – either the upper left, upper right, lower right or lower left corner. In Canada, we use the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grid system on our topographic maps and our grid coordinates mark the lower left hand corner of the square.
Either way, I was a bit perplexed by the Cassini grid results as the location does not match the bearing and distance results, as measured from Dovehouse Farm. I then noticed a small disclaimer at the bottom of the Coordinates Translator results page:
Note: the imprecision of the determination is evaluated between 5 and 30 arc-seconds (this corresponds to an imprecision varying from 150 to 1000 meters on the field).
This footnote linked to an earlier line below the coordinate results which noted that wf778031 “has roughly (*) the following geographical coordinates.”
That is disappointing. I had hoped that the coordinates might give a more accurate location for Josef’s landing site but… it looks like the bearing and distance will have to do for now. Still, it was cool to be able to learn the context of the coordinates.
On the other hand, whilst reviewing the background information from my previous blog post, I noticed that I had two images in my files with very different locations for Wistow Fen Farm.
The image below shows Wistow Fen Farm being located SSW of Dovehouse Farm and at quite a distance from Josef’s landing site.
The second image (below) on the other hand, shows Wistow Fen Farm SE of Dovehouse Farm, along Puddock Drove. This is just a few hundred metres from Josef’s landing site. This second location would make more sense since this would have been the nearest farm to Josef’s landing site. Wistow Fen Farm is where Charles Baldock went to request the assistance of Harry Godfrey. This was also the source of the horse-drawn cart which transported Josef to the Ramsey Police Station.
If any Ramsey folk read this blog post, I’d be grateful for some clarity on the actual Wistow Fen Farm location! Many thanks in advance.