Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/June 2015/Articles


 * James A. Garfield (Coemgenus and Wehwalt) : This article is about a President of the United States who, according to co-nominator Wehwalt, "is almost forgotten today but for the manner in which he met his death. Yet in 49 years he rose from poverty (the last president born in a log cabin) to the White House. He did much in those 49 years, and possibly could have done more if he had been spared for four more."
 * Bill Denny (Australian politician) (Peacemaker67) : Denny was a Labor politician who served as Attorney-General of the state of South Australia before World War I, and as a junior officer in the light horse and artillery during the war. He was re-elected while still serving overseas in 1918 and served in various ministries during the periods his party was in power until he lost his seat in the 1933 election.
 * HMS Nairana (1917) (Ian Rose and Sturmvogel 66) : This first-time collaboration between two FAC regulars covers the unusual career of a ship which was ordered as an Australian Bass Strait ferry, but spent its early years as one of the Royal Navy's first aircraft carriers. Following World War I, Nairana began carrying passengers between Melbourne and Tasmania, and was the only such vessel not to be requisitioned by the military during World War II.
 * Battle of Labuan (Nick-D) : The Battle of Labuan was among the last engagements of World War II, and was fought between a veteran Australian Army brigade and a greatly outnumbered Japanese battalion on an island in Brunei Bay. The Japanese force put up a determined resistance, but was defeated by the Allies' firepower in eleven days of fighting. Nick developed the article as a tribute to his granddad, who took part in this battle.
 * SMS Königsberg (1905) (Parsecboy) : Continuing his work on German warships, Parsecboy has described the career of a cruiser that saw combat far from Europe during World War I. Königsberg attacked British shipping off the coast of East Africa in the early months of the war and was blockaded in the Rufiji River Delta from November 1914. This led to a series of British operations to attack the ship, involving aircraft, a battleship and finally a pair of monitors, before Königsberg's crew scuttled her and joined German guerilla forces in East Africa.
 * British contribution to the Manhattan Project (Hawkeye7) : Also part of a long-running series, this article covers the significant, but little-remembered, British role in the development of atomic weapons during World War II. Britain was unceremoniously excluded from the US atomic program after the war, but its involvement in the Manhattan Project proved important in developing its own atomic bombs.


 * Theodor Weissenberger (MisterBee1966) : Continuing his series of articles on German fighter aces of World War II, MisterBee's first appearance on this month list concerns a pilot who shot down 208 aircraft during 375 combat missions. Most of these "kills" were made against Soviet forces over the Arctic front, but Weissenberger also downed 33 Western Allied aircraft - including eight while flying Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters.


 * Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke (MisterBee1966) : MisterBee's second article for the month provides a biography of another fighter ace. Wilcke shot down 162 enemy aircraft during 732 combat missions. Like Weissenberger, Wilcke fought on both the Eastern and Western Fronts, and was shot down and killed by a USAAF pilot in March 1944.


 * Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid (Cplakidas) : The subject of this article's full name of "Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ṭughj ibn Juff ibn Yiltakīn ibn Fūrān ibn Fūrī ibn Khāqān" is something of a tongue-twister! al-Ikhshīd (as he's commonly known) was an Abbasid commander and governor who became the autonomous ruler of Egypt and parts of Syria from 935 until his death in 946. He was the founder of the Ikhshidid dynasty, which ruled the region until the Fatimid conquest of 969.


 * John Wilton (general) (Ian Rose) : Ian has been working on this article on the commander of the Australian Army between 1963 and 1966 and highest-ranked officer in the Australian military from 1966 to 1970 since 2012. He developed it to A-class as a follow-on from his work on the Frederick Scherger article (Wilton's predecessor as head of the Australian military) and "partly to see if I could add a general to my list of air marshal and admiral FAs".


 * Yugoslav torpedo boat T1 (Peacemaker67) : This small warship had a highly unusual career. She entered service with the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1914, saw combat in both the world wars and was retired in 1959. During this period she formed part of no less than five different navies.


 * SMS Gefion (Parsecboy) : Gefion was the final unprotected cruiser built for the German Navy. Built for service in Germany's colonial empire, the ship saw combat during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and was used as a barracks ship in World War I. The cruiser spent her last three years as a freighter powered by engines taken from unfinished submarines, but was scrapped after proving "not particularly successful" in this role.


 * Second Battle of Kehl (1796) (Auntieruth55) : The latest article in Ruth's series of high quality articles on the Rhine Campaign of 1796 covers an engagement fought between French and Austrian forces on 18 September of that year. During the battle the Austrians successfully captured a French position guarding a crossing of the river Rhine near Strasbourg, which forced the main French army to attempt to cross the river further to the south than it had intended.


 * American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front order of battle (Tomandjerry211) : This article provides a detailed listing, down to regimental level, of the major units in the American Expeditionary Forces of World War I.


 * HMS Collingwood (1908) (Sturmvogel 66) : Collingwood was one of the first generation of British dreadnought battleships and frequently served as a flagship during her short career. She entered service in 1910 and saw combat at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Due to the rapid development of battleship designs at this time, she was considered obsolete by the end of World War I and was sold for scrap in 1922 after being used as a training ship.


 * Operation Pamphlet (Nick-D) : Operation Pamphlet was a convoy which 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.