Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Alan Charlesworth


 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.  No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article promoted. Shimgray | talk | 23:10, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Alan Charlesworth

 * Nominator(s): Ian Rose (talk)

Nominating this article for A-Class review because it's been a while since I scored my last bauble... ;-) Seriously though, yet another RAAF Duntroon graduate from the same time/space as McCauley, Scherger, Hancock, Walters, etc, though never quite reaching the same heights. That said, found him a far more interesting character than I'd expected once I researched him, particularly his action-packed pre-war career... Enjoy! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

A1 review: is good: some fixits. Resources used look good. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:11, 16 January 2011 (UTC) Fifelfoo (talk) 00:15, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Bibliography
 * Ashworth has a subtitle. Ashworth has named volumes.  Ashworth appears to be published 1999 (check bibliographic page of your copy).  Ashworth is a book in series "Heritage Series".
 * Subtitle, yes, but a very long one and life is short. Named volumes, yes, will add. Published, well the copy says first in 2000. Series, technically yes but not really meaningful to the reader (unlike say "Australia in the War of 1939-45").
 * Double check Gillison's title page to ensure that the work's title is correct... the complexity of this title with multiple potential series titles and volume titles...; similarly check other works with named volumes in series to make sure you have the work title correct, and to ensure that Series and Volume Titles are actually a part of the work title, or, if not |series= |volume=
 * All the words of the title as I have it are on the title page. I grant you "Australia in the War of 1939-45" is also the series title but I think what I have is correct and it's seen me through 25 ACRs and FACs without issue... ;-)
 * Helson is incorrectly cited: it is a thesis. See Template:cite thesis.  It has a subtitle.  The publisher is wrong (see the front matter).  You want:
 * Template-wise, I wasn't aware there was a thesis one, there wasn't when I first started referencing this work (maybe I asked for one!). Subtitle, yes, another of those marathon ones that leave you out of breath. Publisher, well I kind of figured University College of the University of New South Wales was part of University of New South Wales but perhaps there's a subtlety I missed...
 * One of the subtleties is which department you have to door knock to get a physical copy of the thesis / who supervised. UC UNSW is obviously ADFA (though, UNSW loves to change organisational names).  The reason to use UC UNSW is that is what is on the thesis itself!  (I did, humbly, create cite thesis for this kind of problem, where the work is not "published" in the sense of commercially made available from a press, but it is available for consultation (thus meeting WP:V's definition of publication). Fifelfoo (talk) 00:15, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, so we have you to thank for the new template -- well done! Actually I just realised it had cite journal before -- that wasn't my doing, I used to employ cite paper as the closest approximation to a thesis before, but another editor changed those recently. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Stephens, David, is a book in series PAPERS IN AUSTRALIAN MARITIME AFFAIRS with a volume number 15. Obviously use title case instead of all caps.
 * I'll check on that.
 * Notes: two newspaper articles need to be rendered in Title Case where they are in All Caps at the moment. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:11, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Personally I prefer title case myself but I was using the Wikipedia citation style generated by the NLA database, which seems to have been acceptable in the past. Thanks for review. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 16:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support: I reviewed this for GA and believe that it meets the A class requirements. It uses a consistent citation style, all claims are referenced, it is comprehensive, well written, and has appropriate supporting materials. Any concerns I had were raised in the GA review and have been actioned as required. AustralianRupert (talk) 01:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support: Can't see anything wrong that hasn't been addressed before. Good, clean article with proper citations and nice visual aids.Intothatdarkness (talk) 22:04, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Tks Rupert, ITD. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Support I've added a little bit to this article, but should be neutral enough to review it. I think that the article easily meets the A class criteria. My suggestions for further improvements are:
 * Was Charlesworth in any way responsible for the crash in November to December 1937 - the current wording implies that might have been (and is a more exact date for this incident possible?)
 * ADB makes a point of 'overall' responsibility -- I take it it was meant because he was CO at the time and/or may have had a close hand in planning, but it doesn't go into such detail. In terms of date, yes I can probably get the precise crash time by checking Coulthard-Clark's Third Brother, I used the month range because the entire mission took place over that period. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not accurate to say that two Spitfire squadrons were transferred from North Western Area - while this was proposed by Bostock in July, nothing had come of it by the time the war ended.
 * I think we're talking about 80 Wing here, aren't we, which did move to Morotai? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Odgers was describing Bostock's plans for No. 1 Wing's three Spitfire squadrons in the Darwin area here. No. 80 Wing moved to Morotai between December 1944 and March 1945. Alan Powell also wrote about negotiations between the RAAF and RAF to transfer the British squadrons to a forward area at about this time in his book The Shadow's Edge: Australia's Northern War (p. 187). Nick-D (talk) 07:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I wasn't specifically referring to two squadrons but, in any case, the pages cited in Odgers include Bostock getting Beebe’s agreement to transfer 80WG to Morotai (p.297), as well as where 452/457Sqns are described as being "under orders" to leave NWA (p.299) -- those squadrons were part of 80WG by then, weren't they? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, they became part of 80WG upon its formation in May 1944. I think that you should tweak the page reference for this statement (the last sentence of the 'World War II' section) to the above pages, as the two Spitfire squadrons which are mentioned as possibly leaving North Western Area on pp. 476-477 were No. 54, 548 or 549 Squadrons. Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Holy crap, we've been talking at cross-purposes the whole time -- I thought you were referring to By October, the wing had received orders to depart NWA for the forward base of Morotai to join the RAAF's main mobile strike force, First Tactical Air Force; this move would leave Charlesworth with twelve squadrons at his disposal... and you meant By July, Charlesworth's area command had been denuded of much of its strength as two of its bomber wings and two Spitfire squadrons were transferred to First Tactical Air Force.... Now I get it -- that's fine, I'll just drop "and two Spitfire squadrons"... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Oops! You could tweak it by adding a sentence stating 'In July Air Vice Marshal William Bostock proposed transferring two of NWA's remaining three Spitfire Squadrons to support the Borneo Campaign' to emphasise that NWA would have continued to have shrunk had the war continued, but this might be more relevant to the Command than Charlesworth. Nick-D (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Might be useful for the area commands article I've got in draft, reckon for Charlesworth it should be okay if I just drop the sqns mention... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Do we know why Charlesworth was considered suitable for future roles after World War II? (some combination of ability and playing politics correctly, I assume)
 * I imagine we won't know that until/unless someone writes a proper bio of him -- if I knew, I'd tell... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Just following up, we can surmise the official reason... Because the WWI-era commanders like Williams, Goble, Bostock, Cole, Wrigley, etc, were ostensibly retired to make way for younger and equally capable officers, we could deduce that Charlesworth was considered to fulfill those last-mentioned criteria -- but I don't know that it's worth trying to put that in. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:58, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Not unless there's a specific source I guess, though this does seem to be a likely reason. Nick-D (talk) 07:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Iwakuni is in Japan, not Korea Nick-D (talk) 06:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Temporary blindness -- tks for that and your other comments! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Support Very minor points follow:
 * "while in charge of North-Western Area" "briefly took charge of Eastern Area" - to me it read really oddly not having "the North-Western Area" or "the Eastern Area". I know they're military formations, and so this is technically correct, but it did look odd in the final section.
 * Hchc2009 (talk) 08:51, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks mate -- funnily enough I thought of that and almost added "Command" after those instances -- would that make it sound less odd without the definite article beforehand? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I reckon you're right, that would read better. Hchc2009 (talk) 12:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Support. I was wondering why there was no prose review and no evidence of copyediting ... turns out it's because the article doesn't need any. One question: I'm not certain, but I almost always see paired commas (or no commas, but not just one) around parenthetical words and phrases in non-AmEng, although I don't have a style guide to back that up. I notice there's no comma after "Royal Military College, Duntroon". Does this seem right to you guys? Do you by chance have a style guide to back that up? Should we remove "paired commas" from the checklist? - Dank (push to talk) 16:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Tks for the vote of confidence on the prose, Dank -- always welcome! I have no strong feeling either way on paired commas re. locations following institutions; I used to employ them religiously, then decided it wasn't so common, now I tend to use again -- so if I didn't do it with RMC, Duntroon, I probably meant to (like just then)... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I wiktilinked (Is that a word? It should be) "secondment". - Dank (push to talk) 16:39, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There used to be a WP article for it but it disappeared, so Wiktionery-ing is a good idea, tks. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "These operations continued through November–December": I'm not against dashes on Wikipedia when they actually make things tighter, but certainly in AmEng and I think otherwise too, they're best avoided (between words, not numbers) if it's just as easy to use words.  I like "November and December" here, but I'll leave the edit to you if you want to make it. - Dank (push to talk) 16:49, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll think on it... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Oxford gives "postwar" rather than "post-war"; "postwar" is right in AmEng. Does Macquarie say different? - Dank (push to talk) 16:53, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've always understood hyphenating to be standard here and use it everywhere but that's just habit, I have no strong feeling on it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.