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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/HMS Nairana (1917)

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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 by Hawkeye7 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 23:06, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator(s): Ian Rose (talk) & Sturmvogel 66 (talk)

HMS Nairana (1917) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This vessel was designed as a passenger ship but commandeered mid-construction by the Royal Navy for service in World War I. It subsequently saw action during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. After that it reverted to its originally planned format and served for three decades as a Bass Strait ferry in Australia. Its civil career included its fair share of excitement, when it came closer to sinking than at any time during its military service. There was also an amusing incident with a Tasmanian devil, which for me evoked visions of the classic Looney Tunes character. This is my first collaboration on a ship article -- Sturm did most of the work on her design and wartime career, while I helped out mainly on the Tasmanian ferry side. We took the article to GAN some time ago; its belated appearance at ACR is due to my tardiness in getting hold of one last source that we wanted to round out the data. Tks in advance for your comments! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:33, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments I find the concept of an aircraft carrier Bass Strait ferry to be mildly terrifying, and have the following comments:

  • "Negotiations between Huddart Parker and the shipbuilders William Denny and Brothers began in December 1913 " - who/what was Huddart Parker? (this para would benefit from an introductory sentence)
  • "The ship was nearly complete when requisitioned, although her propelling machinery was not yet installed" - seems like a significant amount of work still needed to be done! I'd suggest omitting "The ship was nearly complete" as this is a bit confusing.
  • "The British Government released Nairana to William Denny and Brothers after the war to be rebuilt to her original plans" - did the government pay for these works?
    • My sources don't say, although I'm fairly certain that they did for some of the other carriers requisitioned during the war. Maybe Plowman has more exact info, but my sources only cover this in vague generalities. I don't know if the RN sold the ship back to Denny and who then sold her back to Huddart Parker or if the RN paid for her to be converted back at Denny before selling her to the Australians or if the latter had to pay for the reconversion after buying the ship back (presumably at a discount). Very annoying, all in all.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • You could also note that four other Huddart Parker ships were requisitioned: [1] (this story also appears to say that the British Government returned the ship after she'd been converted back to a passenger ship)
  • "Nairana was not considered for war service, unlike some other Bass Strait ferries. She maintained a heavy schedule through the war years" - did her workload increase? (when researching the Australian Army ship Crusader (AV 2767) article I found quite a few newspaper stories from this era complaining about shortages of shipping on the Bass Strait - which Crusader ended up helping to fix). this story says that she was "Tasmania's sole passenger link with the mainland" during the war, though that would obviously need to be cross-checked!
  • "Sold for scrap to Wm Mussell Pty Ltd," - [2] calls this company 'William Mussell Pty Ltd'
  • I suspect that the Wellington Harbour Maritime Museum is now the Museum of Wellington City & Sea
  • If you had a mind to do so, you can mine Trove for all sorts of entertaining stories about this ship (brought to you via small town Tasmanian newspapers). I've added some material about her unfortunate Captain suddenly dying on New Year's Eve 1947. Nick-D (talk) 07:09, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments have now been addressed: nice work Nick-D (talk) 03:26, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

Nothing to nitpick prose/content-wise - great work on the article. Parsecboy (talk) 21:54, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tks Nate! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:36, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 14:00, 6 March 2015 (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.