Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Alister Murdoch


 * 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.


 * Closing as consensus to promote, Woody (talk) 08:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Alister Murdoch

 * Nominator(s): Ian Rose (talk)

From 1954 to 1969, the RAAF was headed by a remarkable series of Chiefs whose most frequently cited common attribute was their status as former cadets of Duntroon&mdash;that is, they studied as Army officers before joining the Air Force. They were Air Marshals McCauley, Scherger, Hancock and Murdoch. Frederick Scherger went through ACR/FAC a while back, and now it’s time for the rest. Among my earliest articles on senior RAAF commanders, John McCauley, Val Hancock and Alister Murdoch have been B/GA-Class till recently (all are GA now), so I decided to expand and improve them in tandem, given the additional sources that have come my way since I created them. It therefore seemed appropriate to put them up for ACR at the same time and, given their similarities, you might like to review them in tandem as well... ;-)

Seriously, it shouldn’t be too bad: after Duntroon, they all joined the RAAF before World War II, saw action during the war, and went on to higher command and eventually the top of the Air Force in the 1950s and 60s. McCauley’s and Hancock’s tours as Chief were separated by Fred Scherger. Comparing those three, McCauley could be seen as the most reserved and cerebral, Scherg as the most dynamic and forthright, and Hancock somewhere between those two poles. Murdoch was the last of the quartet and somewhat the odd one out, not graduating from Duntroon as an Army officer and then volunteering for the RAAF like the others, but entering the college under an RAAF cadet scheme and transferring services before graduation due to economic cutbacks. Plus his legacy is generally considered a negative one for the Air Force, blamed as he is for the service losing its control of battlefield helicopters to the Army in the 1980s. His predecessors are remembered more positively, McCauley for focussing on Australia’s northern defences, Scherg for carrying that a step further by initiating a string of ‘bare bases’ up north and also for ordering the Mirage fighter, and Hancock for picking the fledgling F-111 as the top bomber of its era. Anyway, enough of the intro&mdash;thanks in advance for your input! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:55, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:48, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Early career: His daddy was not promoted to brigadier until WWII, so consider re-wording
 * 2) *Tks, will do.
 * 3) His brother Ian was a MAJGEN, so you can red-link him if you like
 * 4) *Could he be on your long list?
 * 5) **um, no. His daddy is though. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 6) Link Major General to Major General (Australia) instead
 * 7) *Wilco.
 * 8) Enlisting in the Air Force on 10 December 1930' Any idea when he was commissioned?
 * 9) *Generally happened upon graduation as a pilot back then -- will check if any source says specifically...
 * 10) Murdoch was posted to England in 1936 37 I think we are missing something here
 * 11) *Getting my nbsps mixed up with my ndashes again...
 * 12) to undertake a long navigation course On first reading,. I thought that the course was long. Consider re-wording
 * 13) *Heh, sometimes it takes another pair of eyes to pick those "uh?" moments... ;-)
 * 14) Director of Personal Services Personal or Personnel?
 * 15) *Personal Services -- the Directorate came under the Personnel Branch.
 * 16) **Just checking. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 17) ***So have I -- again. I'm not entirely sure the Air Force even knows itself but the impression I'm getting now is that it was "Personal Services" during the war, and "Personnel Services" after. Gillison explicitly mentions the former, Stephens the latter. You might note that in Hancock's article I used the latter, as Stephens does. My source for Murdoch annoyingly uses "Pers. Services", but I think now it's best we assume "Personnel" for that too... Ho-hum. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:29, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 18) Described as second only to the General Dynamics F-111 as the "most significant" purchase by the RAAF, Described by whom? (I would disagree myself and put the Herc first.)
 * 19) *Stephens in his official history of the RAAF 1946-71.
 * 20) sixty-nine were later delivered Skip the hyphen
 * 21) *Hmm, I thought double-barrelled numbers were always hyphenated...
 * 22) UH-1H Iroquois gunships UH-1 or AH-1? I thought it was the latter but I could be wrong. I thought that the hueycobras were even allocated "A numbers" but the RAAF cancelled the order in the Vietnam wind-down. I may have recalled the story wrong.
 * 23) *The Cobra would've been AH-1. Iroquois were always some species of UH-1, I believe.
 * 24) **It was the AH-1G. The gunship version of the UH-1 Huey. I think the article misrepresents this story. The Army wanted the AH-1G. The The RAAF, particularly DCAS AVM Read, wanted more UH-1Hs, which could be used for duties other than as gunships. The Army, in particular the DCGS, MAJGEN Graham, a former commander of 1ATF, protested. The RAAF Board then decided to recommend the UH-1H, on grounds that showed a lack of understanding of gunships. The Air minister accepted the board's recommendation but cabinet overturned this and the AH-1G was ordered in early 1971. The order was cancelled in October 1971. See Coulthard-Clark, The RAAF in Vietnam, pp. 182-183
 * 25) ***I think I've related the story accurately insofar as Murdoch was involved, namely that the Army wanted the AH-1 Cobra while Murdoch preferred the idea of Harriers, if anything. The main area I see our stories diverging is that my source, Stephens, declares that it was UH-1H Iroquois gunships that were eventually ordered, then cancelled, while Coulthard-Clark says it was AH-1 HueyCobras. Given both of their strong track records in Air Force history I can't really say which author is more likely to be correct. Do you know of another reliable source that claims one model or the other? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 26) ****I checked Stephens, p. 299 and p. 318. But also see Parnell and Lynch, Australian Air Force, p. 176, which makes it clear that eleven AH-1Gs were ordered. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 27) *****Heh, well I guess Stephens is outvoted then... ;-) Is that Australian Air Force Since 1911 or some such? If so, I've seen it but haven't had access to it for years unfortunately. What I might do is effectively leave the first part as is, with Stephens as source, but alter the last statement to AH-1 and cite Coulthard-Clark and Parnell/Lynch for that. Can you just supply the ISBN for your copy so I can source the exact publishing details? Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 28) ******Yes, Parnell, N.M. and Lynch, C. A., Australian Air Force Since 1911 (A.H. & A. W. Read: Sydney, 1976) ISBN 0 589 07153 X Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 29) *******Thanks mate, made the change per above. I left the reason for the deal not going ahead as withdrawal from Vietnam (per Stephens) -- if that's not actually in Coulthard-Clark or Parnell/Lynch, let me know and I'll just say it was rescinded in Oct 71 per C-C. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 30) ********The withdrawal from Vietnam is explicitly cited as the reason in Parnell/Lynch. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 31) *********Cool -- tks for pursuing, mate. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 32) A generation of lieutenant-colonels and majors had come to believe that the RAAF did not care about army support, and they were to carry that belief into the 1970s and beyond Um yes. I know that must have been painful for you to write, but that is exactly what I remember from the 1980s and 1990s. Also, remove the hyphen.
 * 33) *Hyphen is in the source quote, I'm afraid. Thanks for the review! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:08, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Support Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

*Comments. At a glance, this looks like another fine piece of work and I've a feeling these will be mostly nitpicks, but here we go. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   14:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. I don't have any serious (ie criteria-based) concerns outstanding. Excellent piece of work and hopefully another future FAC. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   11:26, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably worth your while perusing WP:POSTNOM (see the edit I made with that link in the edit summary). Yes, I know, another of the many utterly thrilling MoS subsections! ;)
 * Those particular links are legacy of the age of the original versions of the articles.
 * Why "Commandant of RAAF College" not the RAAF College?
 * Fair question but it generally seems to have been referred to without the definite article.
 * Fair enough.
 * What's the connection between his knighthood and graduating from Duntroon?
 * Do you mean in the lead? Wasn't trying to imply a connection, just the bit about the knighthood seemed too short to use in a separate sentence -- happy to entertain other suggestions...
 * I don't really have a suggestion, but the current phrasing makes it sound as though the knighthood was directly related to his graduation from Duntroon.
 * The placemnet of that image in the early career section looks horrible on a smallish screen
 * Not sure where else it could go, though. How small is "smallish"? I use both a 15" screen and a 10" screen to check the look of articles and it seems all right on those...
 * I don't know offhand, but I'd guess it's about 10", maybe a bit smaller, and the text looks squashed between the ibx and the img.
 * Suggest a link for his brother, even if it's red—Major Generals are usually notbale
 * Heh, I guess I'm seeing a consensus from the reviewers on this, though I still prefer to avoid red links that might never go blue (even if they're prima facie notable).
 * I guess it's author's discreation. Personally, I'd link it if it were my article, but if he were a Brit, he'd likely be on one of my lists.
 * Anything more known about his father's military service? If he got to brigadier, surely there's some record of him doing something interesting?
 * Well he's got that Australian Dictionary of Biography entry that I linked to (something his sons lack) so might be a tidbit or two...
 * Use double quotes (" instead of ') per the MoS
 * You're talking of 'delighted'? That was sort of a quote but not quite, hence the single inverted commas.
 * One of a small coterie of officers earmarked for top positions in the post-war Air Force... sounds a little POV to me
 * Oh, how so? It's pretty clearly put like that in the sources I cite.
 * Fair enough, it seems a little like praising him to me, but perhaps that's just me
 * So what was his thinking behind his oppositions to the various deployments to support the Army? He was repeatedly overruled by the government and the quote Hawkeye points out seems to suggest that history shows they were the wrong decisions, but I'm not seeing much about why he amde these decisions which seem so disastrous with hindsight
 * I think I've got about as much out of the sources as I can on his reasons, however wrong-headed they may have been. With Wilton it was resourcing and complacency over existing RAAF experience, with Daly it was other priorities, and with the Canberras it was supposed unsuitability.
 * Fair enough.
 * How did he die? Did he have any family?
 * None of the short bios I have go into this. I even scoured microfiche of a couple of newspapers to try and find an obit but no luck (unlike for his predecessors McCauley, Scherger and Hancock). Judging by his last Who's Who entry in 1983, his wife and daughter were most likely still alive at his death but I can't say for certain. Thanks as always for reviewing. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:29, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Also fair enough. I can't really hold it against you if there's nothing written about it. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   11:20, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Support: not much wrong with this one that I can see. I have two minor comments/suggestions:
 * please check the spelling of "overidden" - I think it should be "overridden";
 * the Reference list is slightly out of alphabetical order (e.g Dornan appears before Coulthard-Clark when it should be after and Draper after Herington when it should be before). AustralianRupert (talk) 02:51, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reviewing, AR -- will fix those. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:52, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Support - looks very good to me just one minor comment:
 * "he led a team to the Middle East, where the possibility of Australia contributing a garrison force in the region was first raised." Specifically "in the region" might be more correct as "to the region"? Anotherclown (talk) 09:52, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * AC, there is no doubt that you spot potential improvements that everyone else (including me of course) misses -- tks again! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:43, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk) 19:24, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Murdoch headed a programme to determine future aircraft purchases for the RAAF": I removed "future". His programme seemed to be involved with near-term purchases, unless I'm misunderstanding the text.  If "future" meant only "at a point in time after the point in time it was requested", then it's redundant, and several of the FAC reviewers are pretty strict about this kind of redundancy. - Dank (push to talk) 19:24, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "air/ground operations": Maybe a hard call here. If the slash is used almost all the time in that phrase, then it's hard to argue it shouldn't be there.  But per WP:SLASH, someone will probably complain at FAC.  On "V/STOL", I don't recommend that you change it, but be prepared to defend it.
 * Support on prose and MOS per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 20:57, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks mate, happy with your edits. The slashes in "air/ground" and "V/STOL" are pretty ubiquitous I think -- at least that's how they appear in sources -- so I'll defend them if I have to... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Always a pleasure. - Dank (push to talk) 13:28, 5 May 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.