Solution
For an explanation of how Search works on the site, see Search Tips
There's a LOT of data on this site. All of it is searchable using the Search box on most pages.
You will usually be searching for a name. Spelling is important as Search matches letter for letter (thus it won't find 'Smythe' if you searched on 'Smith')
You can Search on just a name, e.g. Wilson. This will find all pages where 'Wilson' is referenced. If such a reference is on a very large page (e.g. a page in the Kracker Archive, or on our Allied losses masterpage) then you might find it difficult to read through the entire page looking for 'Wilson'. To help you, on large pages we have included a Highlight feature. Just put Wilson in the Highlight field and click the Highlight button and you can then quickly scroll through the page till you see Wilson in yellow. Remember to scan to the bottom as there may be more than one reference on the page.
You can also Search on more than just a name. Say you know the name is Wilson and he was on a raid to Hamburg. You can put 'Wilson AND Hamburg' (without the quotes) in the Search box and now you will see see all pages where BOTH Wilson and Hamburg are referenced.
On the page where Search results are shown, there is an option to use Advanced Search. This provides even more facilities. An explanation of the options is now provided.
Search Tips (Advanced Search)
The advanced search box includes four text fields and a number of search controls.
To perform a search, enter your search terms in the appropriate text fields, select your desired search controls, and press "search".
The text fields include "all", "phrase", "any", and "none". Enter your query in one or more of these fields. A page must match all fields to be included in the result.
all - pages which include all of the terms entered in this field are returned
phrase - pages which include these terms together in this order are returned
any - pages which include any of these terms are returned
none - pages which include other selected terms, but none of these terms are returned. Note that this field cannot be used alone, but must be combined with terms in the all, phrase, or any, fields.
Use the search controls to modify the default search behavior.
number of results The search engine can show from 1 to 25 results per page. Use this dropdown to select the number of results you would like to see on each page.
description text When a search is performed a snippet of text is shown from each page which matches the search. Use this dropdown to control how much text you would like to see with each search result.
word stemming Word stemming is used to match multiple forms of a word to a single query term. For example, when stemming is on, the word "use" would also match "used" and "using", and the word "run" would match "runs" and "running".
Word stemming is language dependent and is not available for all languages. Use the dropdown to select the language you are searching in.
If you want only exact matches select "none" from the dropdown to turn word stemming off.
Note: when matching case or accent sensitive query terms, turn stemming off. If word stemming is combined with case sensitivity or accent sensitivity, only the unstemmed portion of the word will be matched sensitively.
accent sensitive By default accents in words are ignored for word matching. For example "März" would be the same "Marz". If accent sensitivity is on the words "März" and "Marz" will be handled as different words.
case sensitive By default upper and lower case characters in words are considered the same for word matching. For example "march" would be the same "March". If case sensitivity is on the words "march" and "March" will be handled as different words.
NEW! See also search help in this knowledge base.
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