Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/April 2024/Articles


 * Hanford Engineer Works : Another in Hawkeye's atomic bomb series, this article was split from Hanford Site. The Hanford Engineer Works was a nuclear production complex in Benton County, Washington, established by the US government in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project. It operated the first full-scale plutonium reactor, output from which was used in the bomb detonated in the Trinity test of July 1945 and in the Fat Man dropped in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945.


 * Dorothy Olsen : Roy Smith's first Milhist FA is about an American pilot who became a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II.  Olson flew many types of military aircraft, including fighters like the P-51 Mustang and the P-38 Lightning; the Mustang was her particular favourite. She was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009 for her war service, and died in 2019 aged 103.


 * HMS Beaulieu : Beaulieu was a 40-gun fifth-rate Royal Navy frigate that saw service in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Laid down in 1790, she was not considered to have particularly good sailing qualities, but nevertheless participated in campaigns in the West Indies, fought in a major battle, and assisted in a cutting out expedition that resulted in the capture of the French corvette Chevrette.


 * Battle of Big Black River Bridge (Hog Farm) : The Battle of Big Black River Bridge was a brief, and rather lopsided, engagement during the American Civil War's Vicksburg campaign. The Confederate commander, Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, was concerned about one of his divisions, which had been isolated from the rest of the army during the retreat from the Battle of Champion Hill the day before. To hold a bridgehead east of the Big Black River Pemberton positioned another division, which had been mauled the day before, and a brigade of inexperienced conscripts from a region hostile to the Confederacy. The Confederate position collapsed soon after a Union corps arrived in the area and launched an attack. The surviving Confederates fled to avoid being cut off.


 * Crusading movement (Norfolkbigfish) : This article covers the wide-ranging and very important topic of the framework of ideologies and institutions that described, regulated, and promoted the Crusades. These were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Christian Latin Church in the Middle Ages. Members of the Church defined the movement in legal and theological terms based on the concepts of holy war and pilgrimage. Crusading was a paradigm that grew from the encouragement of the Gregorian Reform of the 11th century and the movement declined after the 16th century Ptotestant Reformation. The ideology continued, but in practical terms dwindled.


 * John Bullock Clark (Hog Farm) : A politician, lawyer, and militia officer, John Bullock Clark saw combat in the American Civil War, leading a militia unit into battle against the United States Army while still a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives. This, not surprisingly, led to him being expelled from the United States Congress and he was appointed to the Confederate States Senate. He was not nominated for a second Senate term due to allegations of alcoholism, mendacity, and womanizing but was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives. After the defeat of the Confederacy Clark fled to Mexico and was arrested upon his return to Texas in late 1865. He was released after several months and practised law for the rest of his life.


 * Minden Blake (Zawed) : Minden Blake was a New Zealand Battle of Britain fighter pilot and ace, as well as an accomplished sportsman. A pre-war officer in the RAF, after the Battle of Britain he led fighter wings up until the Dieppe Raid, when he was shot down and became a prisoner of war. After the war, he continued to serve in the RAF in a series of senior posts until 1958. In civilian life, he worked for several manufacturing companies. He was also an inventor, developing a golfing aid that was a commercial success.


 * Hanford Engineer Works (Hawkeye7) : See FA section above