Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/John Hines (Australian soldier)

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Article promoted by AustralianRupert (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 23:06, 9 April 2016 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

John Hines (Australian soldier)[edit]

Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk)

John Hines (Australian soldier) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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This is one of the articles I've most enjoyed working on, but it's a combination of comedy and tragedy. John "Barney" Hines was a British-born member of the Australian Army in World War I. A drifter before the war, he proved an incredibly aggressive soldier. However, his enthusiasm for "collecting" items from the battlefield and German POWs won him the greatest fame, and he was immortalised by a photo showing him surrounded by his loot in 1917. Away from the front line Hines was undisciplined, and frequently punished. After returning to Australia in 1919 he lived in poverty for the rest of his life, though - somewhat incredibly - he was frequently interviewed and profiled in newspapers as late as the 1950s. The photo of Hines has been on display at the Australian War Memorial since the 1930s, and was included in the recent, and very slick, redevelopment of its World War I galleries.

I've been working on this article on and off since 2011. It was a DYK shortly after being created, and passed a GA nomination the same year. I'm hopeful that my expansions since then have brought it up to A-class. Thank you in advance for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 01:26, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Hello, thanks for this article, it is one of the most interesting articles I've read on Australian participation in the first world war. Mr rnddude (talk) 06:03, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I jotted down a few things that I found while going off and researching the man for myself. Feel free to add anything you think is pertinent and disregard the rest, I also included the reference so that you could look at it for yourself (although I think you already have it?:

Just Soldiers by Darryl Kelly (2004): [1]

  • Soon after 'Barney's' arrival, the 45th Battlion moved into the Bapaume area to prepare for its attack on the heavily fortified Hindenburg line. - I suppose this would be his first action in the war.
  • 'Barney' refused to leave a man behind, he would often go searching for dead or missing soldiers from his unit and bury them whenever possible. - strikes me as being worth mentioning.
  • The story about his capturing sixty German soldiers; one day he (Barney) and Second Lieutenant Hopgood were separated from their platoon in Octagon Trench. A sudden burst of machine gun fire hit the Lieutenant injuring him, 'Barney' realizing the gravity of the situation leapt onto the German pillbox and threw a few 'Mills' grenades into the pillbox, 63 surviving Germans, including a general, surrendered to him. - May be a bit over the top?
  • 'Barney' preferred to carry bags of mills grenades with him into battle having some apparent disdain for the .303 rifle.
  • In 1918, 'Barney' fought with the 45th Battalion at the battle of Dernancourt, and was soon after the victim of a German gas attack in which he was temporarily blinded. Reluctant to leave the combat area he was forced to the rear to seek medical attention, en-route the hospital train was bombed with 'Barney' on board. - I don't think he saw any service after this.

Other:

  • From the lead: "and worked in several different occupations" - would it be pertinent to mention which ones?
  • 'On 29 January 1958, Hines died at Concord Repatriation Hospital aged 85.' - perhaps maintain consistency and change to 84-85 as his exact birth date is unknown, this is also reflected in the infobox where his age at death is "84-85".
    • Thanks for these comments. I should have noted in the nomination statement that I've needed to be careful with some of the references, such as the Kelly article, as they contain what are obviously tall tales (which, from looking at old newspaper stories in the National Library of Australia's Trove service, seem to have mainly been made up by Hines) alongside reliable information. I've only used these references to augment material verified by higher quality sources or where the claim is clearly uncontroversial, and left out a lot of other sources which seem totally unreliable. For instance, Peter Stanley repeats the story about Hines capturing 60 Germans, but doesn't state that they included a general (which seems most unlikely). Similarly, Stanley says that Hines' official Army file shows that he was invalided out of the Army due to hemorrhoids rather than wounds, which contradicts some of the details in the Kelly article. Different news stories also claim that Hines' preferred using bombs or that he preferred using a light machine gun. I've made some changes though. Nick-D (talk) 00:37, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Kelly, Daryll (2004). Just Soldiers: Stories of Ordinary Australians Doing Extraordinary Things in Time of War (PDF). ANZAC Day Commemoration (Queensland) Committee. pp. 115–122. ISBN 0-95816-254-9. Retrieved 27 March 2016.

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 18:04, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support
    • I couldn't see any issues with it following a read through, actually it is very a good read (Stanley's "but he had few gifts that a peaceful society valued" in particular).
    • You might consider adding publisher and place of publication for the journals used in the references (i.e. Wartime and Mt Druitt Standard) - not an ACR req, suggestion / pedantic hardly if at all helpful nitpick only. Anotherclown (talk) 09:51, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Comment -- Great article on a fascinating subject, Nick. I only copyedited lightly, no concerns with prose, structure, coverage or sources. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:45, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image review -- Infobox image fine, clearly PD by age, but I don't think we can use PD-1996 on File:John Hines in 1950.JPG, because a 1950 Australian image didn't become PD until 2000 (50 years after creation), and since it's not an AWM image we don't have the explicit "no restrictions" clause we usually get from their 1946-55 items. That could make using the image problematic although I expect you'd have grounds for a FUR if there's no free post-war photos of him. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:45, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks Ian. That's a good point, and I've removed the photo: from my reading of WP:FREER and previous precedents, there need to be pretty strong grounds to sustain a non-free portrait photo, and I don't think they're met here given that the only purpose of the image is to portray Hines in his later life. I've been meaning to trek out to Mount Druitt to snap a photo of the monument, but it's pretty remote from the parts of Sydney I usually visit. Nick-D (talk) 01:28, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, fair enough, that was my only concern so happy to support -- well done as always. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:39, 9 April 2016 (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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