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


 * USS Oberrender : Oberrender was a destroyer escort that operated with the US Navy in the Pacific during World War II. Commissioned in May 1944, she was heavily damaged by the explosion of the ammunition ship USS Mount Hood in November 1944. After being returned to service she undertook anti-submarine patrols during the Battle of Okinawa, during which she was damaged beyond repair by a kamikaze attack in early May 1945. She was decommissioned two months later, and sunk as a target in November 1945.


 * 23rd (Northumbrian) Division : The 23rd was a British Army division of World War II. Under-trained, the division was sent to France in 1940 as unskilled labourers on the condition that they would not be used in combat. That all changed when the German assault through the Ardennes split the Allied armies, and the division found itself on the front line. Having suffered heavy losses in the resultant action, the division escaped via Dunkirk, and after returning to England was dissolved to reinforce other units.


 * Battle of Settepozzi (Constantine) : This article describes a naval battle between the Venetians and the Genoese in 1263 off Greece, while the Byzantines looked on. The smaller Venetian fleet triumphed and, as Constantine notes in his nomination statement, "few details are known about the battle itself, but its diplomatic repercussions were great, leading the Byzantines to a rapprochement with Venice soon after".


 * HMS Roebuck (1774) : Roebuck was Royal Navy fifth-rate warship designed to operate in shallower American coastal waters. She was engaged at the Battle of Long Island and the Siege of Charleston during the American War of Independence. After the war she became an auxiliary, and was broken up during the Napoleonic Wars.


 * Project Rover : According to Hawkeye's succinct nomination statement: "The people that build the atomic bombs decide to become rocket scientists". Rover was a US project to develop a nuclear thermal rocket, based at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. Originally planned as a nuclear-powered upper stage for an ICBM, the project was transferred to NASA in 1958 after the Sputnik crisis triggered the Space Race. Rover was cancelled in 1973, none of its reactor having flown. Unusually among Hawkeye's FAs, this one never went through MilHist ACR, the only FA in this issue that didn't.


 * Douglas Albert Munro : The US Coast Guard's only Medal of Honor recipient and the only non-Marine listed on the Wall of Heroes of the US Marine Corps, Douglas Munro was killed leading a small boat flotilla against Japanese forces to cover the retreat of the 7th Marines at the Second Battle of the Matanikau. After his death, his 48 year-old mother volunteered for military service and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Coast Guard. Three warships have been named in his honor, along with three Coast Guard facilities and a street in his home town.


 * HMS Audacious (1912) (Sturmvogel 66) : HMS Audacious had the briefest career of any British battleship. She was commissioned on 15 October 1913 and was sunk by a mine on 27 October the next year, with all of her crew surviving. Even though American tourists aboard one of the rescuing ships photographed and filmed the sinking battleship, the Admiralty embargoed news of her loss in Britain to prevent the Germans from taking advantage of the weakened Grand Fleet. The British press was not permitted to publish news of the sinking until after the end of World War I.


 * Russian battleship Borodino (Sturmvogel 66) : The Russian battleship Borodino was the lead ship of a class of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the first decade of the twentieth century. Completed after the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, Borodino was assigned to the Second Pacific Squadron that was sent to the Far East a few months after her completion to break the Japanese blockade of Port Arthur. The ship was sunk during the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905 due to explosions set off by a Japanese shell hitting a magazine. There was only a single survivor from her crew of 855.


 * French battleship Brennus (Parsecboy and Sturmvogel 66) : The third in this hat-trick of new ACRs on battleships covers the first modern French battleship, which was named after the ancient Gaullic chieftain Brennus who is best known for sacking Rome. While Brennus was completed in 1893, she was found to be too top-heavy and had to be rebuilt over three years before she could enter service. The battleship spent the majority of her career in the Mediterranean Squadron, and was reduced to a training ship in 1909. She was paid off in April 1914 and was cannibalized for spare parts during World War I.


 * Schichau-class torpedo boat (Peacemaker67) : This article covers a class of 22 torpedo boats built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy between 1885 and 1891. Ten of the class were converted into minesweepers prior to World War I, and all but one of them were used to protect naval bases in the Adriatic during the war. The surviving vessels were split between the Italian Navy and the navy of the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) after World War I. Except for one of the Yugoslav boats which was retained as a training vessel, all of the boats had been discarded and broken up by 1925. This last vessel saw service with the Italians and then the Germans during World War II.


 * Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci (Sturmvogel 66) : Like all of the Italian dreadnoughts in World War I, Leonardo da Vinci was not very active as they were kept in reserve in case the Austro-Hungarian fleet came out to play and the Adriatic was too dangerous for large ships. She was sunk by a magazine explosion in 1916, possibly Austro-Hungarian sabotage or just another propellant explosion as were common in this era. After a heroic salvage effort the ship was refloated upside down and then flipped right-side up in the early 1920, but the Italian navy lacked the money to rebuild her and she was scrapped shortly afterwards.


 * Brandenburg-class battleship (Parsecboy) : The Brandenburg-class consisted of four pre-dreadnought battleships built for the German Imperial Navy, and were the fleet's first modern battleships. Built between 1890 and 1894, the ships served with I Squadron of the German fleet for the first several years of their careers. In 1900, they were deployed to China to help combat the Boxer Rebellion, but they arrived after the bulk of the fighting was over. Two of the battleships were sold to the Ottoman Navy in 1910, and subsequently saw extensive service during the First Balkan War. During World War I the two German ships were used for defensive duties before being retired. One of the Turkish ships was sunk in 1915, and the other remained in service until 1933. This is the last article on battleships of the German Empire to be brought to A-class standard - congratulations to all involved in this huge project.


 * Galeb-class minelayer (Peacemaker67) : The Galeb class were minelayers originally built as minesweepers for the Imperial German Navy between 1918 and 1919. In July 1921, the six unarmed vessels were purchased as "tugs" for the navy of the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (from 1929, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia). After being re-armed, they were used as minelayers. They were all captured by Italian forces in April 1941, and subsequently entered service with the Italian Navy. Five of the ships were sunk during the war, and the Yugoslav Navy operated the surviving vessel until 1962.


 * Frank Borman (Hawkeye7) : Frank Borman was one of the first three people to travel from the Earth to the Moon, as the commander of Apollo 8. He was also a USAF colonel, a test pilot, a businessman and a rancher. He's now 91 years old, and since the death of John Glenn in 2016 he is now the oldest living former astronaut (being eleven days older than his Apollo 8 crewmate Jim Lovell).


 * 9th (Highland) Infantry Division (EnigmaMcmxc) : The 9th (Highland) Infantry Division was a second-line Territorial Army division that was active for almost a year. After being raised in August 1939, it was dispersed throughout Scotland to strategically important points, which mostly included Royal Navy installations, and played a role in the initial defensive plans of the UK. In August 1940, it was renamed the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division (the division's first-line counterpart which had been destroyed during the Battle of France). This division served with great distinction in the Mediterranean and North-West Europe for the remainder of the war.