Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/April 2017/Articles


 * SMS Kaiser Friedrich III : SMS Kaiser Friedrich III was commissioned in 1898 and was badly damaged when she ran aground in 1901. Despite a major upgrade, rapid improvements in technology soon left her obsolete and from 1910 she formed part of the German Navy's reserve force. The battleship served as a coastal defence vessel during the first year of World War I, but was decommissioned in 1915 and used as a prison ship and later as a barracks ship. Parsecboy took the article through GAN and ACR prior to FAC.


 * North Eastern Railway War Memorial : Continuing his work on war memorials designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, Harry's first entry in this month's list concerns a memorial located in York. It was one of two war memorials designed by Lutyens in York, and led to considerable controversy when it was given ten times the budget of the city's memorial and was built in a much more prominent location. The article passed ACR before achieving featured status.


 * Alan Shepard ( and : This article provides a biography of the first American astronaut to enter space. Al Shepard saw combat on board a destroyer during World War II before undertaking flight training. He became part of the Mercury Seven group of astronauts in 1959, and on 5 May 1961 undertook the US's first human spaceflight, the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission. He next entered space a decade later when, as the commander of the Apollo 14 mission, he became the oldest man to land on the Moon. Later he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral. The article passed GAN and ACR before FAC.


 * Lion-class battlecruiser : Nicknamed the "Splendid Cats", the two Lion-class ships were among the most powerful battlecruisers deployed by the British during World War I. They spent most of the war in home waters and were very active as they were the first responders to any sorties by their German counterparts. Lion was badly damaged during the Battles of Dogger Bank in 1915 and Jutland in 1916, while her sister Princess Royal escaped serious damage. Both ships were retired shortly after the war as obsolete. Sturm took the article through GAN and ACR before successfully nominating at FAC.


 * York City War Memorial : The latest in Harry Mitchell's series on First World War memorials designed by Edwin Lutyens is also his second FA-class article on a memorial in York. The York City War Memorial was designed at the same time as the North Eastern Railway War Memorial, the designs and locations of the memorials being controversial. The memorial was unveiled in 1925 and, along with the gates of its memorial garden, has been a listed building since 1970.


 * Operation Mincemeat : The Bounder's first FA covers one of the best known, and most successful, deception operations of World War II. Intended to cover the 1943 invasion of Sicily, British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines, and placed personal items on him identifying him as Captain William Martin, as well as papers relating to fictional invasions of Greece and Sardinia. The body was then released from a submarine off the coast of Spain in the hope that the German intelligence services would receive copies of the papers. This duly occurred, and contributed to the German decision to not reinforce Sicily. The article passed ACR before FAC.


 * 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état : This article focuses on the US CIA-backed coup that deposed Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas. According to nominator Vanamonde, "To those who may be struck by some of the statements in the article, and may have concerns about political neutrality, I can do no better than to invite you to dig into the source material, and also to assure you that the article is actually substantially milder than many of the sources".


 * Project Y : The latest instalment in his series of Manhattan Project articles, this covers what Hawkeye describes as the "best known part" of the topic: the famous facilities at Los Alamos in New Mexico where much of the work in designing and building the first atomic bombs took place. Hawkeye took the article through GAN and ACR before nominating for FA.


 * August Meyszner : Meyszner held the post of Higher SS and Police Leader in the German-occupied territory of Serbia for two years during World War II. After service with the Austrian military in World War I, he became active in the Austrian Nazi Party but fled to Yugoslavia in 1934 and then to Germany. After police postings in Austria, Germany and Norway, he was appointed as Higher SS and Police Leader in Serbia in early 1942. He oversaw regular reprisal killings, and his Gestapo detachment gassed thousands of Jewish women and children. After the war, the Allies extradited Meyszner to Yugoslavia, where he was executed for war crimes in 1947. The article passed GAN and ACR prior to FAC.


 * Operation Pamphlet : Operation Pamphlet was a convoy that transported the Australian 9th Division home from the Middle East in early 1943. The article covers the high-level diplomatic dispute between Australian Prime Minister John Curtin, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt over Curtin's request to bring the 9th Division back to Australia, as well as the - uneventful - convoy operation itself. Nick took the article through GAN and ACR before FAC.


 * List of ships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy : This list sets out all of the vessels other than hulks, tugs and small patrol craft used by the Royal Yugoslav Navy between 1921 and 1945. It is Peacemaker's first FL on a naval theme, and passed ACR prior to its FL nomination.


 * Operation Grandslam (Indy beetle) : Operation Grandslam was a decisive military action undertaken by troops of the United Nations Operation in the Congo during late 1962 and early 1963 that successfully quelled the Katangese secession during the Congo Crisis of the 1960s. This is Indy beetle's first successful A-class nomination, and probably also the first article on a UN peacekeeping operation to be developed to this standard.


 * Operation Bernhard (The Bounder) : Continuing the theme of unusual A-class articles, this article covers a remarkable German World War II scheme to counterfeit British banknotes. While the plan could have been highly successful, it failed due to confused and conflicting bureaucratic infighting in the German high command. Happily, the scheme saved the lives of the 150 concentration camp prisoners forced to develop the counterfeit British currency though they came perilously close to execution in the final days of the war.


 * High Explosive Research (Hawkeye7) : Despite its bland name, this article covers no less than the British post-war atomic weapons program. The program was led by the British civil service, and resulted in the rapid construction of nuclear weapons facilities across the UK and the first British atomic bombs. However, Britain ultimately failed to maintain an independent nuclear weapons program and joined US-led efforts in 1958.