Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/August 2020/Articles




 * Fabian Ware (Eddie891) : Eddie's second FA is a British journalist and the founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. After being turned down by the British Army in 1914 on the grounds of age he volunteered for an ambulance unit and ended the war as a major-general. Post-war, he was heavily involved in the IWGC's function and in World War II continued to serve as vice-chairman of the IWGC.


 * George Gosse (Peacemaker67) : Gosse was an Australian recipient of the George Cross. In April 1945 he was given command of a party responsible for mine clearance in the recently captured Bremen Harbour in Germany. He displayed courage in defusing three mines under very difficult conditions between 8 May and 19 May 1945, and was awarded the George Cross.


 * The Holocaust in Slovakia (Buidhe) : This article describes the systematic dispossession, deportation, and murder of Jews in the Slovak State, a client state of Nazi Germany. Out of 89,000 Jews in the country in 1940, 68,000 to 71,000 were murdered during the Holocaust. Between March and October 1942, 58,000 Jews were deported. The persecution of Jews resumed after August 1944, when Germany invaded Slovakia and another 13,500 Jews were deported.


 * Battle of Adys (Gog the Mild) : The latest sortie into the First Punic War by Gog the Mild, this was a battle in late 255 BC between a Carthaginian and a Roman army. The Romans had successfully invaded Carthage's homeland in North Africa and routed the Carthaginian field army at Adys. Despairing, the Carthaginians sued for peace, but the terms offered were so harsh that they resolved to fight on.


 * William Edward Sanders (Zawed) : The latest in Zawed's series on New Zealanders who were awarded the Victoria Cross during World War I covers the only one of these men who achieved this honour for a naval action. Sanders was a merchant seaman before the war, and served in the Merchant Navy until 1916 when he joined the Royal Naval Reserve. He assumed command of a Q-ship in 1917, and received his VC for seeing off a German submarine during his first patrol. He was killed when another German submarine sank his ship in August 1917.


 * Ismail I of Granada (HaEr48) : HaEr48 offers us the fifth Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada on the Iberian Peninsula. Ismail claimed the throne after a rebellion started by his father Abu Said Faraj, and ruled from 1314 to 1325. The war ensuing war with Castile reached its climax in the Battle of the Vega in 1319, a complete victory for Ismail's forces. Ismail followed up with the capture of castles on the Castilian border in 1324 and 1325.


 * Partisan Congress riots (Buidhe) : Buidhe's second FA last month, the Partisan Congress riots were attacks on Jews in Bratislava and other towns in the Slovak part of Czechoslovakia between 1 and 6 August 1946. A national congress of former Slovak partisans was held in Bratislava on 2 – 4 August 1946 and 10 apartments were broken into, 19 people were injured (4 seriously), and the Jewish community kitchen was ransacked.


 * Invasion of Kagera (Indy beetle) : In 1978 under extremely confused and unclear circumstances, Uganda's armed forces attacked Kagera, a small region in northern Tanzania and occupied it, killing civilians and looting property. Unamused by this hostility, Tanzania launched a counter-attack that saw the Ugandans withdraw from Kagera. This marked the opening chapter of the Uganda–Tanzania War which ultimately saw the overthrow of Ugandan President Idi Amin, and this battle was the only part of the war that took place on Tanzanian soil.


 * List of avisos of Germany (Parsecboy) : This article summarises all of the avisos built by the Prussian, Imperial German, and Nazi German navies between the 1840s and 1930s. The first such vessel was requisitioned from civilian service in 1848 and the last was a yacht built for Hitler. The list forms the culmination of a project last year to document all of these ships.


 * Manuel Noriega (Vanamonde93) : Manuel Moreno was a Panamanian politician and military officer who was the de facto ruler of Panama from 1983 to 1989. He had longstanding ties to United States intelligence agencies before he was removed from power by the U.S. invasion of Panama. He spent the remainder of his life in American, French and Panamanian jails.


 * Tennessee-class battleship (Parsecboy) : The two Tennessee-class battleships were in the US Navy's inventory for nearly 40 years, and their most notable service came during World War II. Both were damaged in the Attack on Pearl Harbor, though only California seriously. They formed part of the bombardment group that supported amphibious assaults across the central Pacific, and were present at the Battle of Surigao Strait, the last action fought between battleships.


 * First Battle of Newtonia (Hog Farm) : Hog Farm's first A-class article covers what they described as "a battle on the fringes of the American Civil War". The First Battle of Newtonia was fought on 30 September 1862 in Missouri between small Union and Confederate forces, both of which included units made up of Native Americans. The engagement ended in victory for the Confederates and the temporary abandonment of Missouri by the Union Army.


 * American logistics in the Normandy campaign (Hawkeye7) : This article covers pretty much what it says on the tin, and is a companion to the British logistics in the Normandy campaign article Hawkeye developed to FA status last year. The article describes the vast, but flawed, logistical effort behind the American landings in Normandy, the fighting on the peninsular and the breakout across France. While the logisticians enabled a major victory, there has been a long-running controversy about whether the mismanagement of supplies contributed to the Allied failure to completely defeat the German Army in the west during 1944.


 * Landis' Missouri Battery (Hog Farm) : Hog Farm's second A-class article concerns Landis' Missouri Battery, also known as the Landis' Company, Missouri Light Artillery, an artillery battery active in the Confederate States Army during the early stages of the American Civil War. Formed in 1862, the battery had four cannons and up to 62 men. It served on both sides of the Mississippi, and was captured at the conclusion of the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863 and not re-formed.


 * Operation Boomerang (Nick-D) : Operation Boomerang was a partially successful raid conducted by USAAF B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers on oil facilities in the Dutch East Indies in August 1944. It was the result of debates during the planning process for Operation Matterhorn, the strategic bombing campaign waged against Japan by aircraft based in India, and formed part of a series of heavy bomber attacks on Japanese-occupied cities in South East Asia. Despite a heavy investment of resources, including a custom-built airbase, the primary target of the bombers was barely damaged. The use of naval mines proved more successful, and marked the start of what proved to be a highly successful USAAF tactic.


 * Benjamin Lewis Hodge (Kges1901) : Benjamin Lewis Hodge was a lawyer, slave owner and politician in Shreveport in north Louisiana who became a colonel in the Confederate Army, leading a regiment at the Battle of Shiloh. After leaving military service due to ill health, Hodge resumed his political career and became a Confederate congressman. He only briefly fulfilled his ambitions, serving in Congress for a few weeks and dying soon afterwards.


 * Dęblin–Irena Ghetto (Buidhe) : The Dęblin–Irena Ghetto was an anomaly in the history of the Holocaust in Poland. While 99% of the Jews in surrounding areas were murdered, in Dęblin–Irena the chance of surviving was as high as ten percent. The article explains why. (In short: some were able to make themselves indispensable to the Luftwaffe, which had a key airfield nearby, and this prevented them from being murdered.)


 * Nassau Agreement (Hawkeye7) : The Nassau Agreement, concluded on 21 December 1962, was an agreement negotiated between President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, to end a diplomatic crisis. A series of meetings between the two leaders over three days in the Bahamas followed Kennedy's announcement of his intention to cancel the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile project critical to British nuclear weapons plans. The US agreed to supply the UK with Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles for the UK Polaris programme. This transferred responsibility for the British nuclear deterrent to the Royal Navy, an arrangement which continues to this day.


 * Treaty of Lutatius (Gog the Mild) : This article covers the treaty signed in 241 BC which ended the 23 year long First Punic War fought between Carthage and Rome. As with the war, negotiations were drawn out and complex. The Romans interpreted the treaty cynically, and extracted further concessions from the defeated Carthaginians in 237 BC.