Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Rupert Downes

Rupert Downes (10 February 1885 – 5 March 1945) was an Australian soldier, surgeon and historian. He joined the Army as a trumpeter while still at school. He attended the University of Melbourne, graduating with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1911, and was commissioned as a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps. During the First World War he served with the First Australian Imperial Force in the Gallipoli and the Sinai and Palestine campaigns. After the war, he wrote the section on Sinai and Palestine for the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918. He was a surgeon at the Royal Children's Hospital and president of the St John Ambulance Brigade. In 1934, he became Director General of Medical Services, the Australian Army's most senior medical officer. He accepted a commission to edit the medical volumes of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1939–1945 but he was killed in a plane crash before he could begin. (Full article...)

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Main editors: Hawkeye7
Promoted: 31 August 2022
Reasons for nomination: 80th anniversary of his death in a plane crash on 5 March 1945
Support as nominator. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:19, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]