Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/March 2011/Articles


 * ARA Rivadavia (Ed and Dank) : ARA Rivadavia was a dreadnought battleship built for the Argentine Navy. Named after the first Argentinian president, Bernardino Rivadavia, she was the lead ship of her class, which also included her sister ship, Moreno. One of only two battleships ever built by the Argentine Navy, Rivadavia was ordered during an early 20th century naval arms race between Chile, Brazil, and Argentina. The contract for Rivadavia was offered to a number of foreign shipyards, including firms in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. The proposals from each company were studied by the Argentine Navy, and aspects from several of them were incorporated into the final design, which was ordered from the Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation in Quincy, Massachusetts. Rivadavia was commissioned on 27 August 1914 but saw no combat in the First World War, as Argentina remained neutral. She underwent extensive refits in the United States in 1924 and 1925. During the Second World War, Rivadavia saw no active duty as Argentina remained neutral until the final months of the war. In 1957 the ship was stricken and was later sold. She was broken up for scrap in 1959.


 * HMS Speedy (1782) (Kirk, Benea and Dank) : HMS Speedy was a 14-gun Speedy-class brig of the British Royal Navy. She was built during the last years of the American War of Independence, and served with distinction during the French Revolutionary Wars. Built at Dover, Speedy spent most of the interwar years serving off the British coast. Transferred to the Mediterranean after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, she spent the rest of her career there winning fame for herself in various engagements and often against heavy odds. She served with distinction with several squadrons, assisting in the capture of several prizes, but Speedy was lost to a superior French force on 9 June 1794. She was soon retaken, and re-entered service under Hugh Downman, who captured a number of privateers between 1795 and 1799. She then fought a number of actions with Spanish forces off Gibraltar, at one point forcing the surrender of a much larger Spanish warship, the Gamo. Speedy was finally captured by a powerful French squadron and donated to the Papal Navy by Napoleon. She was renamed San Pietro, and was finally broken up in 1807.


 * John, King of England (Hchc2009): John (1166–1216), also known as John Lackland or Softsword, was King of England from 1199 until his death. During John's reign, England lost the duchy of Normandy to the French king Philip II, which resulted in the collapse of most of the Angevin Empire and contributed to the subsequent growth in power of the Capetian dynasty during the 13th century. The baronial revolt at the end of John's reign led to the signing of the Magna Carta, a document often considered to be an early step in the evolution of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Contemporary chroniclers were mostly critical of John's performance as king, and his reign has since been the subject of significant debate and periodic revision by historians from the 16th century onwards. He remains a recurring character within Western popular culture, primarily as a villain in films and stories depicting the Robin Hood legends.


 * J. Robert Oppenheimer (Hawkeye7) : Julius Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first nuclear weapons. After the war he became the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He was also a chief adviser to the United States Atomic Energy Commission and used that position to lobby for international control of nuclear power to avert nuclear proliferation and an arms race with the Soviet Union. His outspoken opinions during the Second Red Scare, led to his security clearance being revoked in 1954. He continued to lecture, write and work in physics. A decade later he was awarded the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation. He died in 1967, aged 62.


 * USS Constellation vs L'Insurgente (XavierGreen) : USS Constellation vs L'Insurgente, or the Action of 9 February 1799, was the first United States naval victory against a foreign naval vessel. A single-ship action fought between frigates of the French Navy and the United States Navy during the Quasi-War, the battle resulted in the USS Constellation (1797) capture of L'Insurgente. The previous year, an undeclared war between the United States and France had broken out. An American squadron under Commodore Thomas Truxtun had been sent to patrol between Puerto Rico and Saint Kitts with orders to engage any French forces they found in the area. While Truxtun was sailing independently of his squadron in the Constellation, he met and engaged L'Insurgente. After chasing the French ship through a storm, Constellation was able to force L'Insurgente into an engagement that lasted over an hour before the French frigate surrendered. The French sustained heavy casualties in the action, while American casualties were low. L'Insurgente was subsequently taken to Saint Kitts and commissioned into the United States Navy as USS Insurgent (1799).


 * List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves recipients (1944) (MisterBee1966): The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (German: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) and its variants were the highest awards in the military of the Third Reich during World War II. This military decoration was awarded for a wide range of reasons and across all ranks, ranging from a senior commander for skilled leadership of his troops in battle to a low-ranking soldier for a single act of extreme gallantry. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub) was introduced on 3 June 1940 to further distinguish those who had already received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and who continued to show merit in combat bravery or military success. A total of 328 awards were made in 1944.


 * Manhattan Project (Hawkeye7): The Manhattan Project was the effort, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, which resulted in the development of the first atomic bomb during World War II. The project, which began as a small research program that year, eventually employed more than 130,000 people at a cost of nearly US$2 billion. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites, some secret, including universities across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Two types of atomic bombs were developed during the war. An implosion bomb was the first nuclear device ever detonated, at the Trinity test (pictured) on 16 July 1945. A gun-type weapon, Little Boy, was dropped at Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, while a more complex plutonium-core weapon, Fat Man, was dropped at Nagasaki three days later.


 * No. 79 Squadron RAAF (Nick-D): No. 79 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) flight training unit. The squadron has been formed on four occasions since 1943. It saw combat during World War II as a fighter unit equipped with Supermarine Spitfires, before being disbanded in 1945. It was reactivated between 1962 and 1968 to operate CAC Sabres from Ubon Air Base in Thailand and was active in Malaysia between 1986 and 1988 with Mirage III fighters. The squadron was re-formed in its present incarnation during 1998 and is currently stationed at RAAF Base Pearce, where it has operated Hawk 127 jet training aircraft since 2000. The unit's role is to provide introductory jet aircraft training to RAAF pilots as well as refresher training on the Hawk for experienced pilots. No. 79 Squadron also supports Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy training exercises in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.


 * USS New Ironsides (Sturmvogel 66): USS New Ironsides was a wooden-hulled broadside ironclad built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship spent most of her career blockading the Confederate ports of Charleston, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina in 1863–65. New Ironsides bombarded the fortifications defending Charleston in 1863 during the First and Second Battles of Charleston Harbor. At the end of 1864 and the beginning of 1865 she bombarded the defenses of Wilmington in the First and Second Battles of Fort Fisher. Although she was struck many times by Confederate shells, gunfire never significantly damaged the ship or injured the crew. Her only combat casualty occurred when she was struck by a spar torpedo carried by the CSS David. Eight crewmen were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions during the Second Battle of Fort Fisher in 1865. The ship was destroyed in a fire in 1866 after she was put in reserve.


 * Peter Jeffrey (RAAF officer) (Ian Rose): Peter Jeffrey was a senior officer and fighter ace in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He joined the RAAF active reserve in 1934, and transferred to the Permanent Air Force (PAF) shortly before World War II. Posted to the Middle East in July 1940, Jeffrey saw action with No. 3 Squadron and took command of the unit the following year, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for his energy and fighting skills. He was appointed wing leader of No. 234 Wing RAF in November 1941, and became an ace the same month with his fifth solo victory. In 1942, Jeffrey was posted to the South West Pacific, where he helped organise No. 75 Squadron for the defence of Port Moresby, and No. 76 Squadron prior to the Battle of Milne Bay. He commanded No. 1 (Fighter) Wing in the Northern Territory and Western Australia during 1943–44, at which time he was promoted to temporary Group Captain. He died in 1997, aged 83.


 * John Treloar (museum administrator) (Nick-D): John Linton Treloar OBE (10 December 1894 – 28 January 1952) was an Australian archivist and the second director of the Australian War Memorial (AWM). During World War I he served in several staff roles and later headed the First Australian Imperial Force's (AIF) record-keeping unit from 1917. From 1920 Treloar played an important role in establishing the AWM as its director. He headed an Australian Government department during the first years of World War II, and spent the remainder of the war in charge of the Australian military's history section. Treloar returned to the AWM in 1946, and continued as its director until his death in January 1952. Treloar continues to be regarded as an important figure in Australian military history. His principal achievements are seen as gathering and classifying Australia's records of the world wars and successfully establishing the AWM. Following his death the street behind the Memorial and its main storage annex were named in Treloar's honour.


 * List of armored cruisers of Germany (Parsecboy and The Bushranger): In the late 19th century, the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) experimented with a variety of cruiser types, including small avisos and larger protected cruisers. Due to budget constraints, the navy was unable to build cruisers designed solely for fleet service or for overseas duties. As a result, the naval construction department attempted to design vessels that could fulfill both roles. The protected cruisers, the first of which were the two Irene-class protected cruiser vessels, were laid down starting in 1886. The protected cruisers evolved into more powerful vessels, culminating in SMS Fürst Bismarck (1896), Germany's first armored cruiser. Fürst Bismarck was laid down in 1896, a decade after the first German protected cruiser. Fürst Bismarck proved to be "ideally suited" to overseas duties and formed the basis for subsequent armored cruiser designs. Following this eight more armored cruisers were built, culminating in the SMS Blücher, which was laid down in 1907.


 * Mike Jackson (HJ Mitchell): General Sir Michael David "Mike" Jackson is a retired British Army officer and one of its most high-profile generals since the Second World War. Originally commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1963, he transferred to the Parachute Regiment, with whom he served in three tours of Northern Ireland. He was present at the events of Bloody Sunday (1972) as well as the aftermath of the Warrenpoint ambush (1979). He also served in the Balkans, where in the Kosovo War he famously refused to obey an order from American General Wesley Clark earning him the nickname "Macho Jacko" in the British tabloid press. In 2003, Jackson was appointed Chief of the General Staff (CGS), the professional head of the British Army. He took up the post a month before the start of the Iraq War, leaving the post in 2006 ending a career spanning 45 years.