Talk:Jack Churchill

message: M18A1 Claymore or Claymore sword?
The link for the claymore is to the claymore sword and not the bomb. I think it would be awesome if it was the sword, but I dont know. Please god, let this man be the biggest baddass and have let him used a sword. That would be friggin awesome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.245.243 (talk) 06:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "mad Jack" Churchil was as nuts as a badass Brit can be.....it WAS a sword and he apparently used it to capture many a German....if not to slice and dice.
More here for a good read. 
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/churchill.html
I can't confirm all this so I haven't added anything to the article...but it's a damn fine read, old boy. ;-) (BTW folks if copy and pasting this here violates copyright please delete...I feared that "badass of the week might disappear soon, which is why I copied the lot...too good to be temporary)--Phil Wardle (talk) 07:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  claymore 

message: This should be put in the deletion queue if there is no way to independently corroborate that this man lived and did these things. World War 2 History magazine is not a repository for British commando records. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.252.207.123  (talk) 19:46, 10 May 2006 
:But British commando records aren't what's needed here.  Almost all sources on Wikipedia are secondary sources.  No original research, remember?  If there were some reason to believe the secondary sources were fabricated or inaccurate, that would be one thing.  But is there any reason to believe that here?
:Rbraunwa 20:04, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. No reason not to keep the article; I've heard and seen stranger things in military history. Kuroji 09:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You could always contact his former regiment, they are always happy to help when it comes to former members especially one with the standing of Jack Churchill--Goatan 09:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Jack was my great uncle - he definitely lived and did these things.  I intend to review the entry with my father's help. 40.0.96.1 16:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The link to this article from claymore calls him a Lt. Col was this only a wartime rank as it obviously contradicts this article Alci12 22:41, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primary source, anybody? 

message: This guy is probably the biggest badass in history.
Deimoss 01:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This article is very difficult to believe, and because of that should be supported with good citations, e.g. ones which do not refer to the "merciless hands of the Russians" etc. We'd all love to believe this, but I'm afraid it simply isn't true... --MatthewLiberal 20:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And your proof is...?? Panzer V Panther (talk) 11:50, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow. 

message: This man was the Leeroy Jenkins of WW2. Because he rushed into battle "wid a sawd, y'all" dosn't somehow make him a good soldier, it makes him one lucky son of a bitch that he managed to not get killed. His idiocy (sorry, badassery to some of you) didn't help him or save him, it was sheer luck. As for the "oh, he rounded up 42 Germans", no. He and another officer snuck in, as unsurprisingly it is quite easy to sneak two people in than an entire regiment, and captured a single man. That single man instructed his troops to surrender.
:Wait, are you saying that Leeroy Jenkins isn't a badass?--74.83.10.44 (talk) 05:36, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Badass? No, sorry. 

message: Not to spoil the party, but all the other  prominent Dachau prisoners were liberated in May 1945 at Niederdorf and Churchill is on that list. The SS ran away in fact and left the prisoners behind, no need to escape from Niederdorf (it wasn't a prisoner "camp" either but a really beautiful hotel, (sorry it's German). HerkusMonte (talk) 16:51, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  escape from Niederdorf 

message: I've found two amazing photos of Churchill, staring down the muzzle of a captured 75 gun on Vaagso, and leading troops off a landing craft during a Scottish training exercise, sword-in-hand.  I'll try to upload them this week. If you're over-anxious, or I never get around to it, bug me on my talk page. I just need to get my scanner hooked up :) Sherurcij (speaker for the dead)  07:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm positive, they're photos scanned from a 1960s series of Ballantine books on the Second World War, comprised chiefly of photographs from the Imperial War Museum. Sherurcij (speaker for the dead)  03:28, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Assume you are confused because he's carrying a one handed sword, there are one handed claymores (also known as Scottish Broadswords) Surlywombat (talk) 00:19, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Photo

message: This source suggests that Jack's final rank was Major, not Lt. Col. as he was demoted in 1948: http://www.commandoveterans.org/history_2cdo_b.html Keteracel (talk) 22:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Despite the way that article is worded, I suspect he actually simply reverted to his substantive rank (as happened to most officers who continued to serve after the war as the army contracted to peacetime size).  It is also usual to grant a retiring officer the highest rank held in wartime, would have to check the London Gazette to be sure (see above), but I'm reasonably confident that will be the case in this instance, so it woul dbe correct to describe him as lt-col.  David Underdown (talk) 08:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  rank 

message: He may not have crawled under barbed wire and through a sewer: www.badassoftheweek.com
The following article corroborates the fact that Churchill was in Sachsenhausen with Jimmy James: www.timesonline.co.uk Keteracel (talk) 08:56, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Escape from Sachsenhausen 

message: According to his obituary in the Telegraph he was born in Surrey whilst his father (and presumably his mother as well...) was on leave from the Public Service in Hong Kong. Profoss (talk) 10:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Good spot, I'll change it now--Allthestrongbowintheworld (talk) 17:28, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Got 2 other sources state otherwise(Hong Kong).  Also added a surrey source.  I think military magazines should be the expert in this though. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearchertalk  17:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree, obituaries from national media organisations tend to be as reliable as they come. Logically, the fact that the Telegraph suggests that Churchill was born in the UK, against the prevailing opinion that he was born in Hong Kong, while also going in depth to suggest he was born here while his father was on leave, would suggest that they have credible evidence to support their notion.--Allthestrongbowintheworld (talk) 22:28, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: This is putting too much weight on these medias, they don't have the expertise and time to specifically review and research about a certain person, but only to give out interesting and eye capturing articles that gets readers happy.  There was even a research that used Wikipedia to display how these medias work and how inaccurate they are,(a student intentionally and persistently added a hoax on a person's article that died during that time and eventually the media followed what was written on Wikipedia.) so they don't really have fact checking procedures and may only look into 1 or 2 sources.  —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearchertalk  08:32, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

text: Since there are different sources with different views, per WP:NPOV, both are listed with sources unless a much more reliable source pops up somewhere. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearchertalk  14:18, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthplace 

message: " "Major Jack Churchill was one of the first men on the scene and banged on a bus, offering to evacuate members of the convoy in an APC" - What does that mean? I'd edit it to make it clear if I had the first clue where to start :) Lawrie (talk) 00:22, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't understand something in the British Palestine section 

message: So why is there so much disagreement about his birthplace? --jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇  02:48, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know. Could those changing it to Hong Kong provide an inline citation? Dschslava Δx parlez moi 16:20, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Quoting from the Telegraph's Obituary: "John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill was born in Surrey on Sept 16 1906. His father, Alex Churchill, was on leave from the Far East, where he was Director of Public Works in Hong Kong and Ceylon."  Scr★pIronIV 16:26, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Quoting from "The Churchill Chronicles", "Alec Fleming and Elinor Elizabeth (Bell) had four children, the eldest of whom was called Alec Thorpe, who was born and died in Ceylon in 1905. John Malcolm Thorpe, the next child, was born in Colombo in 1906, and was always called Jack. Thomas Bell Lindsay was the second surviving child and was born in  1907  in  Dormansland,  Surrey (while  his  parents  were  on  leave  in England);  and Robert  Alec Farquhar, nicknamed Buster, was the youngest child and was born in 1911 in Hong Kong." So now I see why the confusion -- one surviving child in Ceylon, one in Surrey, one in Hong Kong. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇  16:45, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthplace wtf 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I appreciate the desire to maintain gender neutral language as a whole, in the 1930's to be a male model was an exception.  As such, it warrants inclusion.  In modern parlance, model means many things; it transcends gender and is quite inclusive.  Would we deny Amelia Earhart her place as a female aviator?  Jack Churchill was, historically, an icon of his gender as Amelia Earhart was of hers.  Historical topics should be spoken of in their unique historical terms, and not be subject to modern euphemisms or revisionist thought.  If it were any model of the past few decades, I would be in complete agreement.  WP:WAW is an essay, neither policy nor guideline - and I am in agreement with much of it.  This is about historical context. Scr★pIronIV 20:55, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Male model 

message: I have removed "Alex" from  Alec Fleming Churchill and put in a link to the article Alec which explains that "Alec or Aleck is a Scottish form of Alex. It may be a diminutive of the given name Alexander or a given name in its own right." which does away with the need for "Alex" in this article. In fact given the date of Birth the man's first name is almost certainly "Alexander". -- PBS (talk) 13:59, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:   Alec Fleming Churchill  

message: :Hi! :) Does anyone know which is the best reference to source the nickname "Fighting Jack Churchill"? I'll need it for this article on WikipediaEN and also WikipediaPT. Thank you in advance and have a nice day :) FranciscoMMartins (talk) 20:12, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference[source] to the nickname "Fighting Jack Churchill" 

message: Much of the end of the early life section talks about Jack Churchill's male modelling, appearance in A Yank At Oxford, his second place in a military piping competition, and him representing Britian in the 1939 Oslo World Archery Championships. All of these rely on a single Vice article which is not a necessarily reliable source. I am not active or experienced with sourcing things in Wikipedia, but if it helps, here is a list of participants in the 1939 Championships, which is from archery.org. You can also find it here in World Archery's own website.  His last name is listed but nothing else. This photo on the left also might be connected to the archery championship if this can be sourced properly, but I haven't been able to discern where this image came from. Oktopoda (talk) 21:55, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Properly sourcing the end of the early life section 

message: "he was known for the motto: "Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed." "
Was this a motto or simply smething he is reported to have said? As the reference is not sourced, nor mentioned in the main article, it appears to be folkore.
JF42 (talk) 16:58, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  motto 

message: @, : I am confused by this recent edit and its revision. Layah50, you say that DrBusinessPants's edit was non-constructive. Could you explain what leads you to that conclusion? I would hyphenate "basket hilted", but that's no reason for a revert... Renerpho (talk) 17:38, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: @Renerpho, I reverted it because that would make it into a red link. In that case, I apologize for the revert and I'll restore that edit. 🛧Layah50♪🛪 ( 話す? 一緒に飛ぼう！) 18:54, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks! I tend to let red links stand, even if they replace blue links, provided that the edit summary gives a good reason for the change. There are many articles that remain to be created, and I wouldn't have been surprised if there's a type of Scottish sword that doesn't yet have its own Wikipedia article. Red links may not look nice, but they are still useful (sometimes). Renerpho (talk) 18:27, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit revert 

message: In the section about surfing, Munich is listed as a spot for tidal surfing, but the only waves existing in Munich are standing waves, some of which are even artificial. 99thGamer (talk) 09:30, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, it sounds a little suspicious given how inland Munich is. That detail was added at the same time from User:SmoovOpr8r as the associated ref, so it's unlikely that someone added it randomly. I tried checking the catalogs at my school and local library and neither have The Illustrated Atlas of Surfing History: Wave Riding from Antiquity to Gidget. Juan el Demografo (talk) 22:08, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I find only three libraries worldwide that have a copy of the book (the Heard Museum library in Phoenix, AZ, USA; and two libraries on Hawaii). Greetings from Germany, by the way. There are no tidal waves in Munich. There's the Eisbach, which is quite famous, but it's not a tidal wave. I guess this could be a misunderstanding, either in the source itself, or by the user who added it? Renerpho (talk) 00:04, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello Renerpho and Juan el Demografo. I am not misunderstanding my reference - it really does say that there are "standing river waves in Munich, Germany". It is on page 151 of the book. I have included screenshot images of the page in the book: SmoovOpr8r (talk) 12:40, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you for the quotes from the book. Standing waves and tidal bores are not the same thing. I have rephrased the section in the article according to your source. This should solve the problem. Renerpho (talk) 15:30, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

text:  I left a note about the images on your Wikicommons user page. Renerpho (talk) 15:40, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I responded. It is ok to delete the images. They were intended for your viewing - so now that you have resolved the issue they are no longer needed. SmoovOpr8r (talk) 15:41, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks. I have also removed the linked images from this talk page, in advance of the deletion. May I ask where you responded? I cannot find it. Renerpho (talk) 15:50, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologize, I made an error. I wrote a message but forget to click the reply button. I have done it now. SmoovOpr8r (talk) 15:53, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I see it now. Apologies for the trouble. Renerpho (talk) 16:01, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surfing: Tidal Bores In Munich? 

message: Large sections of this article, which was created in December 2005, depend on an article from the July 2005 issue of WWII History Magazine. In fact, much of it was taken from there ad-verbatim and without attribution (that is to say, those sections were plagiarized). Much of that happened in a single edit in July 2006. Even though a few of those sections are now attributed to the magazine article, the Wikipedia article in its current form is still a big copyright problem. 18 years after they were added, there are still several sections from that one edit that remain without attribution, even though some have been rephrased in the mean time (although not always to the point where they may not still be copyright infringements).
:Current state  (if still unattributed): In September 1944, Churchill, three Royal Air Force officers (survivors of the Great Escape) and Major Johnnie Dodge escaped Sachsenhausen by using a tunnel that they had dug in secret. Churchill and Royal Air Force officer Bertram James attempted to walk to the Baltic coast. They were captured near the German coastal city of Rostock, a few kilometres from the sea.
::Added on 3 July 2006: In September 1944, he and an RAF officer crawled under the wire through an abandoned drain and set out to walk to the Baltic coast. Their luck was not in, however, and they were recaptured near the coastal city of Rostock, only a few miles from the sea. In time, they were moved to a camp at Niederdorf, Austria.
:::From the WWII History Magazine: 
:Current state  (if still unattributed): In 1952, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced the film Ivanhoe shot in Britain featuring Churchill's old rowing companion, Robert Taylor. The studio hired Churchill to appear as an archer, shooting from the walls of Warwick Castle.
::Added on 3 July 2006: In 1946 Twentieth Century Fox was making Ivanhoe with Churchill’s old rowing companion Robert Taylor and wanted him to appear as an archer, firing from the walls of Warwick Castle. Churchill took the assignment, flown off to the job in an aircraft provided by the movie company.
:::From the WWII History Magazine: 
::Added on 3 July 2006: Though Churchill might have thought that he was through with war, he was not. After World War II ended, he qualified as a parachutist, transferred to the Seaforth Highlanders, and later ended up in Palestine as second-in-command of 1st Battalion, the Highland Light Infantry. And it was there, in the spring of 1948, just before the end of the British mandate over that troubled land, that he again risked his life for other people.
:::From the WWII History Magazine: 
:Current state (if still unattributed): In later years, Churchill served as an instructor at the land-air warfare school in Australia, where he became a passionate surfer. In 1955, he was the first man to ride a tidal bore, doing so on a five-foot Severn bore wave for over a mile.
::Added on 3 July 2006: In later years, Churchill served as an instructor at the land-air warfare school in Australia, where he became a passionate devotee of the surfboard. Back in England, he was the first man to ride the Severn River’s five-foot tidal bore and designed his own board.
:::From the WWII History Magazine: 
::Added on 3 July 2006: As the Pacific war was still raging Churchill was sent to Burma, where the largest land battles against Japan were still raging, but by the time he reached India, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had disappeared in mushroom clouds, and the war abruptly ended.
:::From the WWII History Magazine: 
That's not to mention the even bigger issue that the WWII History Magazine article cites no sources, so its veracity cannot be checked. The source (warfarehistorynetwork.com) is of unclear reliability in general. It calls itself , but that's according to whom? With that, even the sections that are now attributed to that source (which is currently used 14 times in the article, in addition to the ones that were plagiarized) may be hard to verify. The WWII History Magazine has no Wikipedia article; neither does the Warfare History Network. Not even its publishing company Sovereign Media does. As far as I can tell, the only Wikipedia article concerning one of their publications is Otaku USA, which is a magazine about manga comics. That doesn't inspire confidence that they can be trusted as a source for well-researched historical information! Renerpho (talk) 00:24, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I have tried to find sources for some of the parts that either rely on WWII History Magazine, or were expanded from sections that initially relied on that source, often without any sources for the initial claims or the expansion (like for the claim that he surfed for over a mile on the Severn bore). The trouble is that almost all the references that I can find online were created after 2005/2006, and are likely influenced by this Wikipedia article (making them WP:CIRCULAR references). What is needed are reliable (ideally academic) sources from before 2005. Renerpho (talk) 00:33, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The distance surfed on the Severn bore (a mile and a half) is included in this obituary from 1996:  The obituary only establishes that this happened in 1954 or later, but that would be fine as long as we don't specify the year ourselves (it allegedly happened in 1955). Renerpho (talk) 17:01, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

text: The user who is responsible for the problematic 2006 additions is , who are blocked since 2009; see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gastropods/Subpage for organizing CopyVio Cleanup for the (now inactive) WikiProject that was dedicated to cleaning up this user's "massive copyright violations". It appears that the Jack Churchill article was overlooked at that time... Renerpho (talk) 14:27, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to correct that last sentence -- It wasn't overlooked, it just wasn't dealt with! On 11 April 2009,  commented on that WikiProject page about the copyright issues with the Jack Churchill article. Renerpho (talk) 14:38, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations#GrahamBould for possible extant copyright problems with other articles created/expanded by the same user. Renerpho (talk) 19:50, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

text: This is currently being discussed at WP:AN, too; the discussion there may inform how to move forward with this and similar articles. Renerpho (talk) 16:47, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

text: I have marked the parts that use WWII History Magazine as a source with [unreliable source?] tags. This seemed more appropriate to me than to "gut" the article, considering that many of those claims may turn out to be true and verifiable from elsewhere. I think this is different from the copyrighted sections (like that about surfing, see above), which have been removed, and need to be rewritten. For the surfing thing specifically, the 1996 obituary linked above should work. Renerpho (talk) 11:09, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright and reliability issues 

message: With the copyright issue taken care of for the moment (some sections need to be rewritten, but the revdel has taken care of any legal issues), the problem of the dubious reliability of WWII History Magazine remains. I have described those above, in my edits from 00:24, 27 May 2024 and 00:33, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I have marked the parts that use WWII History Magazine as a source with [unreliable source?] tags. This seemed more appropriate to me than to "gut" the article, considering that many of those claims may turn out to be true and verifiable from elsewhere. I think this is different from the copyrighted sections (like that about surfing, see above), which have been removed, and need to be rewritten. For the surfing thing specifically, the 1996 obituary linked above should work. Renerpho (talk) 11:09, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  The reliability issues, and how to move forward