Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/January 2012/Articles


 * 1689 Boston revolt (DCI2026): The 1689 Boston revolt was a popular uprising on April 18, 1689, against the rule of Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of the Dominion of New England. A well-organized "mob" of provincial militia and citizens formed in the city and arrested dominion officials.  Members of the Church of England, believed by Puritans to sympathize with the administration of the dominion, were also taken into custody by the rebels.  Neither faction sustained casualties during the revolt.  Leaders of the former Massachusetts Bay Colony then reclaimed control of the government.  In other colonies, members of governments displaced by the dominion were returned to power. Andros, commissioned governor of New England in 1686, had earned the enmity of the local populace by enforcing the restrictive Navigation Acts, denying the validity of existing land titles, restricting town meetings, and appointing unpopular regular officers to lead colonial militia, among other actions. Furthermore, he had infuriated Puritans in Boston by promoting the Church of England, which was disliked by many Nonconformist New England colonists.


 * 68th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Coemgenus): The 68th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Also known as the Cameron Rifles or the Second German Rifle Regiment, the men were mostly German immigrants. Organized in July 1861, three months after the outbreak of war, the 68th saw service in the Eastern and Western theaters.  As a part of the Army of the Potomac, it was initially assigned to the defenses of Washington, D.C.  Later, the 68th was transferred to the Shenandoah Valley and fought at the Battle of Cross Keys.  The men of the 68th were then reassigned to central Virginia and found themselves in the thick of the fighting at Second Bull Run.   After returning to the nation's capital, the regiment fought in Chancellorsville and was routed by Confederate forces.  At Gettysburg, they saw battle on two of the three days and took heavy losses.  The regiment was then transferred to the west and participated in the Chattanooga campaign.  The 68th fought in the battles of Wauhatchie and Missionary Ridge, assisting in the Union victories there.  The regiment marched to relieve the siege of Knoxville, and then spent the last year of the war on occupation duty in Tennessee and Georgia, before being disbanded in November 1865.


 * Battle of Kaiapit (Hawkeye7): The Battle of Kaiapit was an action fought in 1943 between Australian and Japanese forces in New Guinea during the Finisterre Range campaign of World War II. Following the landings at Nadzab and at Lae, the Allies attempted to exploit their success with an advance into the upper Markham Valley, starting with Kaiapit. The Japanese intended to use Kaiapit to threaten the Allied position at Nadzab, and to create a diversion to allow the Japanese garrison at Lae time to escape. The Australian 2/6th Independent Company flew in to the Markham Valley from Port Moresby in 13 USAAF C-47 Dakotas, making a difficult landing on a rough airstrip. Unaware that a much larger Japanese force was also headed for Kaiapit, the company attacked the village on 19 September to secure the area so that it could be developed into an airfield. The company then held it against a strong counter attack. During two days of fighting the Australians defeated a larger Japanese force while suffering relatively few losses. The Australian victory at Kaiapit enabled the Australian 7th Division to be flown in to the upper Markham Valley. This action accomplished the 7th Division's primary mission, for the Japanese could no longer threaten Lae or Nadzab, where a major airbase was being developed. The victory also led to the capture of the entire Ramu Valley, which provided new forward fighter airstrips for the air war against the Japanese.


 * Kenneth R. Shadrick (Ed!) : Kenneth R. Shadrick was a private in the United States Army at the onset of the Korean War who was widely but incorrectly reported as the first American soldier killed in action in the war. He joined the U.S. Army in 1948 and spent a year of service in Japan before being dispatched to South Korea at the onset of the Korean War in 1950 along with his unit, the 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. During a patrol on July 5 1950, Shadrick was killed by the machine gun of a North Korean T-34 tank, and his body was taken to an outpost where journalist Marguerite Higgins was covering the war. Higgins later reported that he was the first soldier killed in the war, a claim that was repeated in media across the United States, but Shadrick was actually killed after the first American combat fatalities in the Battle of Osan.


 * Oswald Watt (User:Ian Rose): Oswald Watt OBE (1878–1921) was an Australian aviator and businessman. The son of a Scottish-Australian merchant and politician, he was born in England and educated at Bristol and Cambridge. In 1900 he enlisted in the Militia, before acquiring cattle stations in New South Wales and Queensland. He was also a partner in the family shipping firm. Becoming in 1911 the first Australian to qualify for a Royal Aero Club flying certificate, Watt joined the French Foreign Legion as a pilot on the outbreak of World War I. He transferred to the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) in 1916, quickly progressing from a flight commander with No. 1 Squadron in Egypt to the commanding officer of No. 2 Squadron on the Western Front. By February 1918, he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and taken command of the AFC's 1st Training Wing in England. A recipient of France's Legion of Honour and Croix de Guerre, and twice mentioned in despatches during the war, Watt was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1919. He left the military to pursue business interests in Australia, and was lauded for his generosity to other returned airmen. In 1921, at the age of forty-three, he died by accidental drowning at Bilgola Beach, New South Wales. He is commemorated by the Oswald Watt Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in Australian aviation, and the Oswald Watt Fund at the University of Sydney.


 * RAF Uxbridge (Harrison49): RAF Uxbridge was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Uxbridge, within the London Borough of Hillingdon, occupying a 44.6 ha site that originally belonged to the Hillingdon House estate. The British government purchased the estate in 1915, three years before the founding of the RAF. Until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the station was open to the public. The station is best known as the headquarters of No. 11 Group RAF, which was responsible for the aerial defence of London and the south-east of England during the Battle of Britain. Hillingdon House served as the group's headquarters. A bunker, subsequently known as the Battle of Britain Bunker, was built nearby to house the 11 Group Operations Room, which controlled fighter squadrons operating within the group. The Operations Room was also responsible for providing air support during the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940 (Operation Dynamo) and the D-Day landings (Operation Overlord). It was here that Winston Churchill first said, "Never was so much owed by so many to so few", which he repeated in a speech to Parliament four days later. RAF Uxbridge closed on 31 March 2010 as part of a reduction in the number of Ministry of Defence properties in the Greater London area. Many remaining military units were relocated to nearby RAF Northolt the following day. Plans for redevelopment, consisting of a mixture of new residential and commercial properties and the retention of all listed buildings, were approved in January 2011. A small part of the station incorporating the Battle of Britain Bunker retains the RAF Uxbridge name and is maintained by RAF Northolt.


 * USS Arizona (BB-39) (Sturmvogel 66):USS Arizona was a Pennsylvania-class battleship built for and by the United States Navy in the mid-1910s. Named in honor of the 48th state's recent admission into the union, the ship was the second and last of the Pennsylvania class of "super-dreadnought" battleships. Although commissioned in 1916, the ship remained stateside during World War I. Shortly after the end of the war, Arizona was one of a number of American ships that briefly escorted President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference. The ship was sent to Turkey in 1919 at the beginning of the Greco-Turkish War to represent American interests for several months. Several years later, she was transferred to the Pacific Fleet and remained there for the rest of her career. Aside from a comprehensive modernization in 1929–1931, Arizona was regularly used for training exercises between the wars, including the annual Fleet Problems (training exercises). When an earthquake struck Long Beach, California in 1933, Arizona's crew provided aid to the survivors. The ship was featured in a Jimmy Cagney film, Here Comes the Navy, about the romantic troubles of a sailor. In April 1940, she and the rest of the Pacific Fleet were transferred from California to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as a deterrent to Japanese imperialism. During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Arizona was bombed. She exploded and sank, killing 1,177 officers and crewmen. Unlike many of the other ships sunk or damaged that day, Arizona could not be fully salvaged, though the Navy removed parts of the ship for reuse. The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial, dedicated on 30 May 1962 to all those who died during the attack, straddles the ship's hull.


 * Warkworth Castle (Nev1) : Warkworth Castle is a ruined medieval building in the town of the same name in the English county of Northumberland. The town and castle occupy a loop of the River Coquet, less than a mile from England's north-east coast. When the castle was founded is uncertain, but traditionally it has been ascribed to Prince Henry of Scotland in the mid 12th century, although it may have been built by King Henry II of England when he took control of England's northern counties. Warkworth Castle was first documented in a charter of 1157–1164 when Henry II granted it to Roger fitz Richard. With the outbreak of the Anglo-Scottish Wars, Edward II invested in castles including Warkworth where he funded the strengthening of the garrison in 1319. Twice in 1327 the Scots besieged the castle without success. Henry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy, took control of Warkworth Castle in 1345. Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, added the imposing keep in the late 14th century. The fourth earl remodelled the buildings in the bailey and began the construction of a collegiate church within the castle, but work on the latter was abandoned after his death. Though Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, supported Parliament during the English Civil War, the castle was damaged during the conflict. The last Percy earl died in 1670, and the castle found its way into the hands of Hugh Smithson who adopted the name "Percy" and founded the dynasty of the Dukes of Northumberland, through whom possession of the castle descended. Alan Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland, gave custody of the castle to the Office of Works in 1922. English Heritage has cared for the site since 1984, and the castle is a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.


 * Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (Hawkeye7): The Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP) was a United States military agency responsible for those aspects of nuclear weapons remaining under the military after the Manhattan Project was succeeded by the Atomic Energy Commission on 1 January 1947. These responsibilities included the maintenance, storage, surveillance, security and handling of nuclear weapons, as well as supporting nuclear testing. The AFSWP was a joint organization, staffed by all three services, with its chief supported by two deputies from the other two services. Major General Leslie R. Groves, the former head of the Manhattan Project, was its first chief. The early nuclear weapons were large, complex and cumbersome. They were stored as components rather than complete devices and required expert knowledge to assemble. However the short life of their lead-acid batteries and modulated neutron initiators, and the amount of heat generated by the fissile cores, precluded storing them assembled. The large amounts of conventional explosive in each weapon likewise demanded special care be taken in handling, for which Groves hand-picked an elite team of regular Army officers. They in turn trained the enlisted soldiers, and the Army teams then trained teams from the Navy and Air Force. As nuclear weapons development proceeded, the weapons became smaller, lighter, and easier to store. The AFSWP gradually became more involved in stockpile management and providing administrative, technical and logistical support. It also supported nuclear weapons testing. In 1958, the AFSWP became the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA), a field agency of the Department of Defense.


 * Battle of the Bismarck Sea (Hawkeye7): The Battle of the Bismarck Sea took place in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) during World War II. Aircraft of the U.S. Fifth Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) attacked a Japanese convoy that was carrying troops to Lae, New Guinea. Most of the task force was destroyed, and Japanese troop losses were heavy. In December 1942, the Japanese decided to reinforce their position in the South West Pacific. A plan was devised to move some 6,900 troops from Rabaul directly to Lae. On 28 February 1943, the convoy—comprising eight destroyers and eight troop transports with an escort of approximately 100 fighters—set out from Simpson Harbour in Rabaul. The Allies had detected preparations for the convoy, and naval codebreakers in Melbourne and Washington, D.C. had decrypted and translated messages indicating the convoy's intended destination and date of arrival. The Allied Air Forces detected and shadowed the convoy, which came under sustained air attack on 2–3 March 1943. Follow-up attacks by PT boats and aircraft were made on 4 March. All eight transports and four of the escorting destroyers were sunk. Out of 6,900 troops who were badly needed in New Guinea, only about 1,200 made it to Lae. Another 2,700 were saved by destroyers and submarines and returned to Rabaul. The Japanese would make no further attempts to reinforce Lae by ship, greatly hindering their ultimately unsuccessful efforts to stop Allied offensives in New Guinea.


 * List of heavy cruisers of Germany (Parsecboy): The German navies of the 1920s through 1945&mdash;the Reichsmarine and later Kriegsmarine&mdash;built or planned a series of heavy cruisers starting in the late 1920s, initially classified as panzerschiffe (armored ships). Four different designs&mdash;the Deutschland-class cruiser, D, P, and Admiral Hipper-class cruiseres, comprising twenty-two ships in total&mdash;were prepared in the period, though only the three Deutschland-class ships and three of the five Admiral Hipper-class cruisers were ever built. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, limited German warships to a displacement of 10000 MT. The first class of ships designed under these restrictions was the Deutschland class, designed in the late 1920s, and commonly referred to as "pocket battleships". Five ships of the Admiral Hipper class were authorized under the terms of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, signed in 1935, which permitted Germany 50000 LT of heavy cruisers, but only three were completed. In total, Germany completed six heavy cruisers, all of which saw extensive service with the fleet. Most were used as commerce raiders during the war, of which Admiral Scheer was the most successful. Admiral Graf Spee was meanwhile scuttled after the Battle of the River Plate. Blücher was sunk by Norwegian coastal batteries during Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Denmark and Norway, just four days after the ship joined the fleet. Deutschland&mdash;renamed Lützow&mdash;Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper were all destroyed by British bombers. Only Prinz Eugen survived the conflict. She was ceded to the US Navy as a war prize and used in nuclear testing in Operation Crossroads.


 * Łódź insurrection (1905) (Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus): Also known as the June Days, the Łódź insurrection was an uprising by Polish workers in Łódź against the Russian Empire between 21–25 June 1905. This event was one of the largest disturbances in the Russian-controlled Congress Poland during the Russian Revolution of 1905. Poland was a major center of revolutionary fighting in the Russian Empire in 1905–1907, and the Łódź insurrection was a key incident in those events. For months, workers in Łódź had been in a state of unrest, with several major strikes having taken place, which were forcibly suppressed by the Russian police and military. The insurrection began spontaneously, without backing from any organized group. Polish revolutionary groups were taken by surprise and did not play a major role in the subsequent events. Around 21–22 June, following clashes with the authorities in the previous days, angry workers began building barricades and assaulting police and military patrols. Additional troops were called by the authorities, who also declared martial law. On 23 June, no businesses operated in the city, as the police and military stormed dozens of workers' barricades. By 25 June the uprising was crushed, with estimates of several hundred dead and wounded. The uprising was reported in the international press and widely discussed by socialist and communist activists worldwide. Unrest in Łódź would continue for many months, although without protests on such a large scale.


 * Relief of General Douglas MacArthur (Hawkeye7): On 11 April 1951, US President Harry S. Truman relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, a popular war hero of World War II who was then the commander of United Nations forces fighting in the Korean War, of his commands for making public statements that contradicted the administration's policies. MacArthur's relief remains a controversial topic in the field of civil-military relations. MacArthur led the Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific during World War II, and after the war was in charge of the Occupation of Japan. When North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, starting the Korean War, he was designated commander of the United Nations forces defending South Korea. He conceived and executed the amphibious assault at Inchon on 15 September 1950, for which he was hailed as a military genius. However, when he followed up his victory with a full-scale invasion of North Korea on Truman's orders, China intervened in the war and inflicted a series of defeats, compelling him to withdraw from North Korea. By April 1951, the military situation had stabilized, but MacArthur's public statements became increasingly irritating to Truman, and he relieved MacArthur of his commands. The Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a joint inquiry into the military situation and the circumstances surrounding MacArthur's relief, and concluded that "the removal of General MacArthur was within the constitutional powers of the President but the circumstances were a shock to national pride."


 * HMS Temeraire (1798) (Benea): HMS Temeraire was a 98-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1798, she served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought only one fleet action, the Battle of Trafalgar, but became so well known for her actions and her subsequent depictions in art and literature that she has been remembered as 'The Fighting Temeraire'. Built at Chatham Dockyard, Temeraire entered service on the Brest blockade with the Channel Fleet. Her first incident of note came when a group of sailors, hearing rumours they were to be sent to the West Indies at a time when peace with France seemed imminent, refused to obey orders, so committing an act of mutiny. The mutiny failed and a number of the mutineers were tried and executed. Temeraire went into action immediately astern of Horatio Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory, at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. During the battle Temeraire came to the rescue of the beleaguered Victory, and fought and captured two French ships. She returned to public renown in Britain. Her last action was against the French off Toulon in 1810, when she came under fire from shore batteries. Temeraire was eventually converted in turn to a prison ship, a receiving ship, a victualling depot, and finally a guardship. The Admiralty ordered her to be sold in 1838, and she was towed up the Thames to be broken up. This final voyage was depicted in an oil painting by J.M.W. Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, which won enduring acclaim. In 2005 it was voted Britain's favourite painting.


 * HMS Vanguard (23) (Sturmvogel 66): HMS Vanguard was a British fast battleship built during World War II and commissioned after the end of the war. She was the only ship of her class and was the biggest, fastest and last of the Royal Navy's dreadnoughts, and the last battleship to be launched in the world. Throughout her career, the battleship usually served as the flagship of whichever unit she was assigned to. Work on the ship's design commenced before the war because the Royal Navy anticipated being outnumbered by the combined German and Japanese battleships in the early 1940s. The British had enough guns and gun turrets in storage to equip one battleship that could be built relatively quickly. Her design was revised several times, even after construction had begun, to reflect war experience and these changes prevented her from being completed during the war. Vanguard's first task after completing her sea trial at the end of 1946 was, early the next year, to convey King George VI and his family on the first Royal Tour of South Africa by a reigning monarch. Vanguard briefly became flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet in early 1949. After her return home in mid-1949, she became flagship of the Home Fleet Training Squadron. During the early 1950s, Vanguard was involved in a number of training exercises with NATO forces. In 1953 she participated in Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation Review. While she was refitting in 1955, the Admiralty announced that the ship was going to be put into reserve upon completion of the work. Vanguard was sold for scrap in late 1959 and was broken up beginning in 1960.