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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Roy Dowling

[edit]
Nominator(s): Ian Rose (talk)


Another Navy officer hot on the heels of Hector Waller, but more in common with a much older RAN bio of mine, Henry Burrell, i.e. saw WWII service but made his major contributions afterwards, becoming Chief of Naval Staff. Dowling went one step beyond Burrell, however, advancing to Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee -- sort of a poor man's Chief of Defence Force. Anyway, hope you enjoy it...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:52, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Just some brief notes (one of which was left following the B-class assessment request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Requests but may have been archived before you saw it). No stance for or against promotion at this time.
    • A bit more detail in the "Later life" section would be appreciated if possible, particularly in relation to the church work alluded to. Also, some context on what organising Queen Elizabeth's 1962 royal tour entailed and why Dowling was picked would be good
      • What you see is pretty well what you get as far as later life goes, at least from secondary sources. I have trawled Trove and GoogleNews archives for anything else and did add a tidbit re. Red Cross chairmanship. There may be more detail on the royal tour as well, however definitely nothing else I can see re. church work. He did only live eight years after leaving the military so I think there's a reasonable amount there considering... cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:30, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Vengeance and company image relating to Queen Liz's 1954 tour: I think I get what you're trying to do with its inclusion, but there's nothing I can find in the body of the article linking Dowling and what's being depicted here, particularly as the image is about four paragraphs removed from where such information would chronologically be in the text.
      • That's why I cited the information in the caption, because I didn't mention/cite it in the main body. As to position, I'd love to have more relevant images at the appropriate spot in the narrative but I've had my discussions with the AWM about releasing post-1955 images with GNU free licenses or whatever, and just been stonewalled. There are a few later ones at state libraries, who might be more forthcoming than AWM about free licensing, but don't hold your breath... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:30, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Any particular reason why all the images in the body are hardcoded at 250px? Wouldn't it be better to remove the size hardcoding and let default/user-preference size settings reign?
      • Rules against hardcoding image size were relaxed a while back, and I like to make things a bit bigger than default size so people don't necessarily have to double-click on images to get a decent rendition of them. It's always been accepted at my ACRs/FACs... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:30, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hope this helps. -- saberwyn 00:03, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Comments:
    • no dab links, ext links work, images have alt text (no action required);
    • images seem appropriately licenced (no action required);
    • in the lead "expence", shouldn't this be "expense"?
    • in the lead (and elsewhere) "HM Queen Elisabeth II", should this be "Elizabeth", with a "z"?
    • "newly commissioned Grimsby class sloop HMAS Swan". Minor point, but I think the convention is to hyphenate e.g. "newly commissioned Grimsby-class sloop...";
    • typo here: "In December, Naiad particpated in the..." (should be "participated");
    • irregular caps: "against Italian Naval forces"? I think this should be "against Italian naval forces";
    • Henry Wells (general) might be overlinked. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:08, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support with nitpicks

  • "Dowling became Chairman COSC" - is that the correct phrasing, or should it be "Chairman of the COSC"?
    • In my readings it's "Chairman COSC", "Chairman, COSC", or "Chairman of COSC"; don't think I've ever seen "Chairman of the COSC". Made it "Chairman of COSC" here.
  • "Dowling took charge of the gunnery school at Cerberus" - explain or link Cerberus?
    • Synonymous with Flinders Naval Depot (which was linked) so altered accordingly
  • "carrying out duties in the South West Pacific" - is that the official name of the area per the RAN? If not, suggest "Southwest" or "South-west" as appropriate.
    • Official Allied name for the area was South West Pacific Area (SWPA) or South West Pacific theatre -- altered to latter.
      • No, that's not right. The official name was "South West Pacific Area". "Southwest" is the American spelling, which is also valid in an American article. Thanks to the Australian typists at GHQ, the Australian spelling appears in most primary documents. "South West Pacific theatre" is a Wikipedia simulacrum. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What are "teething troubles"?
    • General term for mechanical issues often associated with new equipment -- I think I picked that term to avoid closely paraphrasing whatever was in the source to that effect.
  • Don't bracket ellipses, in general
    • In this case the source used ellipses after "as you know, and" so I left them exactly as they were. Then I left a sentence or two out myself, so I've put the "[...]" to distinguish that. I've no prob altering if you have a better suggestion...
  • Does the Allison Report have an article?
    • 'Fraid not, and I don't think Mr (or Mrs) Allison does either...
  • Not sure it's appropriate to capitalize "Federal" as you are. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support with comments:

  • My first thought was that Dowling was a British air marshal. I think I had him confused with Hugh Dowding. Never mind. I added him to the Dowling (surname) page btw
  • Typo: "convoys resupplyimg Malta"
  • I like the quote of the conversation with Lord Mountbatten, which is at once eloquent, poignant, obsequious and dopey. The early part of the article provides a good background to it. A reference might be nice. (Incidentally, certain RAAF types regard the RAN's recent insistence that all equipment must be American as typically ratbaggy.)
    • Yes, I think similar adjectives ran through my mind when I read it, and I felt it just had to go in. As such an Anglophile, it's hardly surprising he enjoyed organising the Queen's tour -- that KCVO must've been all his Xmases come at once... Bit of a contrast to Scherg, who replaced him as Chairman COSC and proceeded to cut even more ties to the Brits and with much less reluctance... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What I don't like is "the only similarly qualified and more senior Navy captain was pronounced unfit for seagoing duty". I hate this sort of stuff where the reader is told "I'm not going to tell a peasant like you". It is one thing to keep referring to "a German U-boat" when you know full well which one it was; this is something else. (My first guess would be Harold Farncomb, the only RAN officer who had previously commanded an aircraft carrier.)
    • Not guilty, Your Honour -- well, extenuating circumstances at least...! The senior captain in question was one John Malet Armstrong, who has no WP article and, given he retired as a commodore 2nd class, appears to have little prospect of gaining one. If the bloke was notable, then no question I'd mention him...
  • "in agreeing a draft directive for the role " sounds awkward somehow. Perhaps a word is missing.
  • You use RANC but do not define it.
  • Why put the abbreviation after all his awards except the KCVO? (Awarded on the final day of the Royal tour, right?)

Cheers Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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