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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Military service of Ian Smith

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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.
Article promoted. Anotherclown (talk) 02:17, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Military career of Ian Smith

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Nominator(s): —Cliftonian (talk)


This article just passed GAN following a very pleasant review from AustralianRupert Anotherclown, and I feel it can go further. Smith's service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War is particularly interesting when viewed with his later political career in mind. Knowing about his wartime experiences helps one to fully understand his mindset as Rhodesian prime minister during the 1960s and 1970s. I look forward to all comments and suggestions. Thanks, and have a nice day, —Cliftonian (talk) 18:11, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

G'day, actually it was Anotherclown who reviewed this at GAN, but he's been bludging off me for years, so its only fair that I get some of the credit for his hard work now... ;-) AustralianRupert (talk) 09:10, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For that, I will book myself in for a review... Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Very droll AR... but probably true! Anotherclown (talk) 11:01, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Er, um... woops... Apologies for the name mix-up AC, and thanks AR for also now reviewing! I hope you are both well and look forward to hearing more from you both. :) —Cliftonian (talk) 12:10, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comment: No worries, I've read through the article once and made a few minor tweaks. One question I have at the moment is about the dates of birth and death. The full dates only appear to be in the infobox where they appear uncited. I wonder if they should be added to the body? I will come back tomorrow and have another read through, but it is late here so I'm off to bed. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've put citations on the birth and death dates in the infobox; I feel the full dates aren't really necessary in this article, which focusses on Smith in the RAF rather than his whole life, but I don't feel too strongly about this and will go with consensus. —Cliftonian (talk) 12:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I got busy at work and had to have a few days off wiki. Anyway, I'm back now at least for a couple of hours. Your change with the dates looks fine. I see Nick has made a few comments that, if implemented, will change the article a little so I will wait until you've responded to him and then read through it again to complete a prose check. In the meantime, I tweaked the Commons page of File:IanSmith1990crop.png. Please review my changes and check that you are happy with them. The other image I wonder about is File:Ian Smith RAF.jpg. I'm wondering if the licence shouldn't in fact be "PD-UK-Gov" rather than "PD-Zimbabwe". What's your take on this? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:10, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The changes to 1990 are fine. The RAF picture I think should stay as it is, as we don't know for sure that it's an official military or government picture (as the licence would imply). It seems equally likely to me that Smith might have just had some pictures taken of himself in uniform at the end of (or during) his training. But I don't feel particularly strong about this and am happy to change it if consensus dictates. Thanks for this, have a great weekend —Cliftonian (talk) 07:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Given that we can't be certain, your solution is probably the best one, I think. Anyway, I will continue my review below. AustralianRupert (talk) 23:08, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He was promoted to flight officer on 25 March 1943". Is this rank correct? You don't mean flying officer, do you?
  • "Hurricane Mk IIC, serial KZ179, at 05:46 local time": is this level of detail really necessary?
  • "three other Allied personnel—a Frenchman, an Austrian and a Pole". Are we sure that it was an Austrian? One imagines that there weren't too many Austrians that were serving in the Allied forces, so perhaps this is a typo?
  • I was surprised too. I agree that it seems more intuitive to think it would be an Australian, but it seems to have indeed been an Austrian. The soldier in question is referred to as such in both the two main reference books (Berlyn 1978 and Smith 1997), and references are made in both books to the Frenchman, Austrian and Pole together as "the three continentals", so it seems it was indeed an Austrian. And from a logical standpoint, if it were actually an Australian, why would Smith not have been able to speak to him in English? —Cliftonian (talk) 06:29, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • in the newspaper and journal section of the References, it seems some of the newspapers use the cite journal template, when it might be better to use the cite news template;
  • The chapter is simply called "1965–1967", and it runs from page 46 to page 62. The information cited comes from a section of a few paragraphs subtitled "Run-up to UDI". Thanks for the helpful comments, hope you are well —Cliftonian (talk) 06:29, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ah, wait, no I see what's happened now. The cite book template has been changed by someone to change what the author and editor parameters do. Binda is the author and Cocks is the editor, but it's not a matter of Binda contributing a chapter to a Cocks book. Hold on, I'll change this —Cliftonian (talk) 06:32, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments As I noted on the talk page, this is a really interesting topic for an article, and hopefully sparks a trend. I have the following comments:

  • "Ian Smith, the Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979," - this is a bit clunky given that virtually everyone who reads the article will know who Smith was. How about starting with 'Future Prime Minister of Rhodesia Ian Smith..." or just chop the PM bit out altogether?
  • "Smith was shot down by enemy flak" - no need for 'enemy'
  • "Smith was fascinated by the idea of being a fighter pilot, and particularly excited by the prospect of flying a Spitfire" - is this correct? I didn't think that the Spitfire was well-known until its role in the Battle of Britain.
  • I was paraphrasing the source material, which is The Great Betrayal, page 10. On the one hand, these memoirs were written half a century later, but on the other, Smith kept a regular journal for most of his life, the result being that much is recalled as he wrote it down at the time. The source material for this part says: "I received some hope from an announcement that Rhodesia had been chosen as one of the countries to pioneer the Empire Air Training Scheme ..."—this occurred in 1940—"... My dream was to fly a Spitfire, so I consoled myself with the need for patience—but it did not come easily, and it was difficult to concentrate on such mundane things as academic studies". The arrangement of this paragraph seems to imply that his admiration for the Spitfire came only in 1940, after it became famous in the Battle of Britain (as you correctly say), but it isn't explicitly said. The Berlyn biography, The Quiet Man (1978), mentions Smith having a keen interest in the air force, so it does not seem to me completely impossible that he might have known of the Spitfire beforehand. —Cliftonian (talk) 07:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Southern Rhodesian whites in general were very keen to enlist; because it was feared that the absence of these men might adversely affect the strategically important mines, conscription was introduced to keep many settlers out of the military and in their civilian occupations." - this is a bit unclear. Rather than conscription, do you mean the broader system of manpower controls which many countries introduced? (for instance, Australia and the UK had almost universal manpower allocation schemes in which people were assigned to the military or high-priority civilian occupations, and many categories of skilled workers were effectively prohibited from joining the military)
  • Again I based the wording on the source material. Both the autobiography and the Berlyn biography mention this and refer to it as "conscription". This may be simplified or colloquial wording, but other sources I've seen also seem to use the term "conscription", for example A. J. A. Peck in Rhodesia Accuses (1966), page 75: "... the official reason given for the introduction of conscription in Rhodesia was that too many Rhodesians sought to join up ..." George Henry Tanser's The Guide to Rhodesia (1975) also uses this wording, on page 38: "... so overwhelming was the enthusiasm of volunteers that, to keep key workers on the land and in industry, the Government had to introduce conscription in 1939." Smith comments in The Great Betrayal (on page 9) that it was "a unique situation: people were conscripted to keep them out of the security forces", so perhaps it actually was conscription. —Cliftonian (talk) 07:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Australian term for this was 'manpower controls'. Effectively everyone was conscripted in Australia from 1942, and the government had the right to allocate them to the armed forces or key industries. It would seem though that Rhodesia just just used 'conscription' (Rhodesia was far from alone in introducing such a system BTW). Nick-D (talk) 10:12, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why did Smith talk to no less a figure than the director of manpower if he was trying to take a low-profile approach and hoping that his status as a student wouldn't be noticed?
  • He doesn't say. Again, I was just going along with the source material, in this case The Quiet Man. Off the top of my head it might be possible that he hoped to avoid bureaucracy by going straight to the director of manpower himself, rather than entrusting his fate to a series of lower-ranking functionaries, any one of whom might check his background and notice his attendance at Rhodes. Of course this is just a possible explanation. As I say the source (The Quiet Man, page 46) doesn't say, it just says Smith "quietly came up here to Salisbury and I went to ... William Addison; he was the Director of Manpower, dealing with all of the call ups. I knocked on the door and went to see him—this was who it was, and I have never forgotten him." ... "There were no difficulties, said Mr Addison, it would be easy to fix [Smith] up." —Cliftonian (talk) 07:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He had never parachuted before, but had been through the routine many times mentally" - I think that he would have received some training in this as well as part of his initial training course (from memory, pilots jumped off towers in parachute harnesses to simulate what they'd need to do if they bailed out)
  • I think I misinterpreted the source material here. Smith writes that he "had often gone through the drill for such an emergency so there was no hesitation". I had taken this to mean that he had rehearsed the situation in his head, but thinking about it again I think he is probably referring to the kind of drill you described. I've changed this as it seems more logical. "He had never parachuted before, but had been often been through relevant drills ..."—Cliftonian (talk) 07:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can more be said about how Smith's reputation as a war hero influenced his reputation within the Rhodesian population? - this is hinted at.
  • Did it also have any effect on his military policies through the Bush War? (the Rhodesian Air Force was always pretty large and effective, which suggests it was well resourced).
  • I have been looking and I have yet to find any references to Smith's wartime experiences influencing his policies during the Bush War. As you may know the Malayan conflict was a more prominent influence on Rhodesian military strategy during the 1970s —Cliftonian (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The obituary from The Independent notes that Smith wore a Spitfire pilot's tie until late in his life. This doesn't appear to be noted in the article, and can anything more be said about how his service as a pilot influenced his perception of himself?
  • As a minor quibble/suggestion, is 'career' the right word for the title? 'service' might be better given that Smith only appears to have intended to serve in the air force during the war. Nick-D (talk) 08:19, 3 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the very helpful review! I hope my answers above are satisfactory for now; I will get onto the unfinished ones during the week. Regarding the last suggestion, I had been thinking about whether to use "career" or "service", and I ultimately settled on the former essentially for consistency (see here). I have no real problem with changing it to "service", but I will say that it might imply that he was drafted into the war, which he wasn't. He probably would have been had he stayed at Rhodes until he graduated his course, but that's academic. Anyway, I'll go with consensus on this last thing. Thanks and have a great rest of the weekend! —Cliftonian (talk) 07:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A few comments, not a complete review: - Dank (push to talk)

  • "prime ministership": not in the dictionaries I checked. this and this give "premiership" as the word, but I think that's going to confuse some readers, so I'd reword without -ship.
  • OK
  • "conscription was introduced to keep certain settlers out of the military": How does conscription keep people out of the military?
  • Changed to "manpower controls"
  • "that bush...": At FAC, people will want "that bush ...", per WP:ELLIPSES.
  • OK

Support -- Reviewed this with alacrity at DYK, and glad to see it at ACR. Structure, referencing, coverage and image licensing appear fine. Aside from what I've copyedited, just a few minor points, none of which are deal breakers:

  • I'm not sure "British Royal Air Force" is warranted; if it's there to emphasise that he served in another country's armed forces I guess it's fair enough, but otherwise I think the RAF is well-known enough to be mentioned without the qualification.
  • I don't think it hurts to have "British" there for extra clarification. It also concisely makes clear to readers unfamiliar with the context that the RAF he was in was the British one, not a Rhodesian version (or indeed a South African one) —Cliftonian (talk) 10:07, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pretty sure flags in infoboxes are going out of fashion; doesn't fuss me for ACR but may come up at FAC.
  • "creditable academic student" sounds a bit odd to me -- do we mean he had a credit average or something like that?
  • Do we happen to know what he was flying at Idku, before he went on to Hurricanes?

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:48, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above 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.
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