Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/March 2019/Articles


 * Lou Spence : The latest in Ian's series on Royal Australian Air Force figures, this article covers the career of a fighter pilot who saw service in World War II and the Korean War. Spence joined the RAAF in 1940 and served in North Africa and Australia during World War II. He rejoined the RAAF after the war, and was the commanding officer of No. 77 Squadron in Japan at the outbreak of the Korean War. He led this unit in combat from June 1950 until his death in a combat mission on 9 September that year.


 * Fall of Kampala : The Fall of Kampala in April 1979 was a critical but often forgotten moment in African history. It was the first time an African state seized the capital of another, and it resulted in the overthrow of the regime of Idi Amin. The actual fighting was nothing to write home about, as the bulk of the Ugandan Army crumbled and fled in the face of a three-pronged Tanzanian assault.


 * Siege of Aiguillon : Nominator Gog described this siege as "a turning point in the Hundred Years' War which has been almost completely ignored by historians". It took place between April and August 1346, when French forces besieged an Anglo-Gascon army. The English commander adroitly avoided battle, harassed the French communications, and repeatedly ran supplies through to the besieged town. The French abandoned the siege in an attempt to reinforce their northern army, which was defeated at the Battle of Crécy before they could arrive.


 * Yugoslav torpedo boat T7 : Peacemaker67 described this article as covering "a dinky little torpedo boat that served in two wars under four different flags". Commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1916, the ship saw action during World War I. She became part of the Royal Yugoslav Navy from 1921 to April 1941, when she was captured by Italian forces and pressed into service with their navy. T7 ended her career with the Navy of the Independent State of Croatia, and was destroyed by the Royal Navy in 1944.


 * Emesa helmet : The latest in Usernameunique's series on ancient helmets, this is an intricately detailed piece in iron, silver and gold, featuring a face plate likely based on the owner's visage. Unearthed in Syria in 1936, it was restored at the British Museum before finding its way to the National Museum of Damascus. Since 2017 it has been hidden in underground storage owing to the Syrian Civil War.

Note: All but one of the above articles underwent a MilHist A-class review before achieving featured status.


 * Southampton Cenotaph (HJ Mitchell and Hchc2009) : The first of two articles in HJ Mitchell's series on war memorials designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens covers the first of these memorials to have been completed. Southampton Cenotaph influenced his later work, including the Cenotaph in London. The memorial was marred by the accidental omission of the names of over 200 war dead, as well as the deliberate omission of most of the city's Jewish war dead motivated by concerns over its design including a Christian cross.


 * James Park Woods (Peacemaker67) : This article also forms part of a long running series, on South Australian Victoria Cross recipients. Woods received the VC for an action on 18 September 1918. He was a member of a four-man patrol sent to make contact with a flanking British unit after an attack, but instead found a strongly-held German position. He led the patrol against the German post, putting thirty enemy to flight, then helped hold it until reinforcements arrived. He survived World War I, but suffered from poor health linked to his military service.


 * Midland Railway War Memorial (HJ Mitchell) : The Midland Railway War Memorial in Derby commemorates the 2,833 employees of the Midland Railway who "joined the colours" in the First World War, never to return. HJ Mitchell developed this article to A-class with the aid of a grant from Wikimedia UK to purchase a book and "my shelf full of railway history books", and it includes photos of the memorial taken by him.


 * Battle of Bergerac (Gog the Mild) : This article covers a battle fought in south-western France between Anglo-Gascon and French forces in 1345 during the Hundred Years' War. While most of the French forces were opposing an English offensive in the north of the country, the Anglo-Gascons attacked and defeated the main concentration of French troops in their region.


 * Jacobite rising of 1745 (Robinvp11) : Robinvp11's first A-class article covers a large and historically important uprising against the British Government in Scotland. The uprising took place during the War of the Austrian Succession, when the bulk of the British Army was fighting in mainland Europe, and proved to be the last in a series of revolts that began in 1689. While the rebels enjoyed initial success and invaded England, they were crushed after being badly defeated in the 1746 Battle of Culloden.


 * Milorad Petrović (Peacemaker67) : Milorad Petrović was the the commander of the Royal Yugoslav Army's 1st Army Group during the April 1941 German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia. He initially joined the Royal Serb Army in 1901, and served through World War I. Petrović's Army Group disintegrated in days during the German-led invasion in 1941, and he was captured by fifth columnists. He returned to communist Yugoslavia after the war, and lived to the age of 99.


 * Ersatz Yorck-class battlecruiser (Parsecboy) : The Ersatz Yorck-class was the "last serious battlecruiser design of the Imperial German Navy". Three ships were planned, and work began on the first, but none were completed before the project was abandoned so resources could be allocated to the construction of U-boats. In the nomination statement Parsecboy noted that "I wrote the original version of this article almost ten years ago - in the time since then, some new sources have been published that have allowed me to expand it significantly to its current state".


 * Lancaster's chevauchée of 1346 (Gog the Mild) : Lancaster's chevauchée of 1346 was a large-scale mounted raid led by Henry, Earl of Lancaster, as a part of the Hundred Years' War. Lancaster and an Anglo-Gascon force met no effective resistance from the French, and the attack shifted the focus of the fighting from the heart of Gascony to well beyond its borders.


 * United Nations Command-Rear (Chetsford) : Despite its grand name, United Nations Command-Rear has a strength of four people and is essentially a fictitious command. It exists to prevent the expiration of the 1954 Status of Forces Agreement between the USA and Japan which allows American forces and units from nine co-signer countries to enter Japan at any time without the authorisation of the Japanese Government. The United Nations argues that the command has little to do with it, and is under the authority of the United States.


 * French battleship Bretagne (Sturmvogel 66 and Parsecboy) : Bretagne had a typical career for a French dreadnought of her generation. Her participation in World War I mostly consisted of swinging around a mooring buoy as she was tasked to prevent a breakout into the Mediterranean by the Austro-Hungarian fleet. Between the wars, she was extensively modernized and remained in 1st-line service. She was briefly deployed in search of German commerce raiders and blockade runners after the start of World War II. The ship was destroyed when Britain attacked the French fleet in mid-1940 to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Germans.


 * Michael Collins (astronaut) (Hawkeye7 and Kees08) : Michael Collins is best known for being the astronaut who remained in orbit around the moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first moon landing. Prior to joining NASA, he was a fighter pilot and test pilot in the USAF. He remained a member of the USAF Reserves after leaving NASA, and reached the rank of Major General in 1976 prior to his retirement in 1982.