User talk:Reuv

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[edit] Contact with writer

I'd very much like to talk privately to whoever was kind enough to provide such a wonderful history of the Ledbury. My father, Eric Woodland, was her radio operator from commissioning of the ship until the end of the war. I suspect there weren't many men who were with her throughout.

My father told a story as he was dying about an incident he said happened in, I believe, Greece. My father rarely talked of the war and certainly never romanced about it or boasted of what he did. And yet it generally and something specifically troubled him deeply. It could have been the story that he told in his last hours or that could have been the rambling of a sick man. If anybody would be willing to help, I'd deeply appreciate the chance to talk. You can contact me, please, on my own "talk" page. My many thanks. 77.194.246.214 (talk) 15:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)les woodland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Les_woodland


[edit] SS Ohio

Believe me I understand about exams, and well done on such a good article. If you'd like, I'll look over it again for you at some point. All the best--Jackyd101 22:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HMS Ledbury (1940)

Hi Reuv. I nominated HMS Ledbury (1940) to appear on the Main Page under the Did you know... section. The nomination hook appears here. There is a five day from creation window for DYK nominations, so I wanted to make sure it was in the queue. Please feel free to revise the nomination hook as you see fit. Great job on the article. -- Jreferee (Talk) 04:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Operation Pedestal

[edit] HMS Ledbury (1940)

Updated DYK query On 26 June 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article HMS Ledbury (1940), which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--howcheng {chat} 18:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HMS Ledbury peer review

I have copied what i put on my peer review to here. (The dialogue has to be noted on the peer review as well so that it can all be archived and any GA or FA reviews can see what has happened at peer review and how the recommendations were acted on.)

Just a couple of Manual of Style related issues.
  • MoS:Times It needs to be correctly formatted throughout.
  • In the cite web template, you have accessdate and accessyear, it would reduce the text slightly if it was shown in the most common style of '|accessdate=2007-06-28'
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) has a small amount of text related to italics. I don't think that there is a specific rule related to the ship name always being in italics except in a title. The loose rule is that it should be used for emphasis so i do not think that all the instances of Ledbury should be in italics, quotations should be but not the ships name. Use other prefixes such as 'the Ledbury' that omit the italics.
  • Wikipedia:Footnotes The correct syntax for the multiple footnotes is

This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.<ref name="multiple"/>

I think some browsers have problems dealing with your references as they are. Also so that new editors could easily understand the reference it is better to give them a name such as IWMweb13 or ref name="AuthorX"p.13 and not a, b, c as new editors would not be able to understand them.
Other than these small style objections, I would now put it up for GA Review to see what they say and it should be passed easily. I suggest Pedastal is put up for peer review and GA when you think it is ready. Woodym555 15:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
As it turns out i was worng in my recommendation about italics. For that i apologise and i will go through the article! Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) is the reference point if you need it. Sorry for the inconvenience! Woodym555 20:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ledbury reviews

Thanks for your comments, they are appreciated. It has been a pleasure helping you improve your article, i have been on an educational tour of Malta organised by the IWM and i do know the importance of the Malta convoys and the resilience of the Maltese people. Woodym555 18:35, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Roger P. Hill (Royal Navy officer)

Hi Reuv. You are off to such a great start on the article Roger P. Hill (Royal Navy officer) that it may qualify to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page under the Did you know... section. Appearing on the Main Page may help bring publicity and assistance to the article. However, there is a five day from article creation window for Did you know... nominations. Before five days pass from the date the article was created and if you haven't already done so, please consider nominating the article to appear on the Main Page by posting a nomination at Did you know suggestions. If you do nominate the article for DYK, please cross out the article name on the "Good" articles proposed by bot list. Again, great job on the article. -- Jreferee (Talk) 02:26, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Portal peer review

Hello, Reuv! Since it has been a month since you nominated the Malta Portal for peer review, I hope you received good feedback on how the portal could be improved. If you would like, you could keep the portal listed at the portal peer review for more suggestions for improvement and ask the Wikipedians here for feedback. Also, if you think the portal is ready, you could nominate the portal for featured status. Either way, I hope you've received helpful reviews! Cheers, [sd] 15:07, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Thanks for your help

Hi

Thanks for your message. I wanted to get in touch because my father, who never glorified the war or showed any feeling for it except quiet dismay, apparently spoke of it to his younger brother in his (my father's) last hours. I obviously can't hope that you can verify the story but I'd be interested in knowing if the foundations seem likely or if my father was rambling or the story was enhanced in the telling.

Hunt class destroyers, as you'll know, were flat-bottomed. That made them fast but hideously bumpy; it also meant they could get inside Norwegian fjords and other shallow water.

There were just two wireless operators in the Ledbury - my father, throughout the war, and a man called Albert Keogh for at least some of the war. My father kept in touch with nobody from his war years but he did always meet Albert once a year and I suspect from the way he said so little of what should have been happy reunions that there was a lot discussed of the "I'll tell you when you're older, son" sort.

I know Albert and my father went ashore with landing groups, as they would have to do as radio operators. My father said little of the war but he said that sometimes they picked up Greek or Yugoslav resistance fighters or people of that sort and now and then those that they had captured. In my childhood glee, I confirmed that my father had a gun, that he had learned to shoot it at Shotley or at any rate that he had had some sort of commando training at Shotley.

The story that he apparently told as he died, "something I want to get off my chest", is that at some time he went ashore with a group to pick up some high-ranking German captured by the Resistance. I don't know from which country. With the German (let's call him a colonel, although I don't know what rank he had) were a couple of others. Something happened and it appears my father may have drawn his gun and shot one of the lesser Germans.

Back abroad ship, where the colonel outranked everyone else, the Ledbury having only a commander, the colonel is said to have demanded a court-martial or some other trial for my father because he hadn't been in uniform when he went ashore. I obviously don't know the legal background but, according to my father, the Ledbury's commander felt he had no choice but to hold a trial, in which my father was found guilty and presumably condemned as a murderer, to be shot or hanged or whatever. Everyone knew the trial was a sham, to follow the Geneva convention or some other protocol, and that no more would be heard of it.

Many things troubled my father after the war, although he was perfectly sane and rarely spoke of anything, but if it's true that that is what happened then this incident troubled him more than anything.

I confirmed with the Admiralty that my father left with a faultless record, although he was never demobbed (which my father said was to bind him to keep secrets but which struck me as probably no more than what happened to countless men). I traced Roger Hill, the commander who took the Ledbury through the burning oil and who had since moved to New Zealand, but he said he remembered nothing of the sort. He said he couldn't speak for all the Ledbury's operations because he had been in the ship for only part of the war. He passed me on to half a dozen other shipmates, who confirmed that shallow-water operations had happened and that Hunt destroyers were well designed for them, but nobody could confirm the specific incident. One or two were unwilling to discuss anything, which may (or may not) have hinted at shadows in their own memory.

Had my father romanced about the war or sought others from the ship for company, even if he had joined the British Legion (which he consistently refused to do, for fear that he would have to go through his memories or cope with war bores in general), I might have dismissed the story out of hand.

It is just that it is so out of character, for a very gentle man who would have been troubled by killing anybody (and I think these landing groups did also kill sentries and go through their wallets for anything they might find, like letters they knew they could never post), and yet so in character that at the last moment he'd want to get it off his chest.

I simply don't know. It's no longer important to me other than out of nagging curiosity and all the contradictions involved.

With your knowledge of the Ledbury, is there anything you can add, do you think? I'd be fascinated to know more and, to be honest, with so much time passed, it wouldn't distress me to know my father was rambling or that the story had been embroidered by the time it reached me.

Thank you for reading this far. If you wish to write back, you can get me privately at lanternerouge (at) ifrance (dot) com.

Happy days

les

[edit] Better late than never

WikiProject Ships Barnstar
For your work on HMS Ledbury which lead to the first ever A-class destoyer article I herby award you the WikiProject Ships Barnstar. Keep up the good work! TomStar81 (Talk) 08:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)