Talk:Military history of New Zealand

New Zealand Commandos in Normandy?
I've removed the photo of what claims to be "New Zealand Commandos disembarking from LCI on the Normandy coast, 6 June 1944 during Operation Overlord" as I don't believe that these soldiers are, in fact, New Zealanders. The photo's caption at its source link doesn't state that the soldiers are New Zealanders and I don't believe any New Zealand Army units took part in the invasion (or that the NZ Army even had commando units (other than the NZ Squadron of the LRDG in North Africa) during WW2). --Nick Dowling 00:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's the photo:

New Zealander did take part in D Day
For starters the Battle of Normandy Wikipedia page states it

According to the PM

"“While no New Zealand units per se were involved in D-Day landings, there was significant New Zealand involvement from among the 4700 New Zealand personnel attached to the Royal Navy and the six thousand attached to the Royal Air Force at the time."

Many LCI were British. Although I agree with you that the picture lacks information, I believe those are New Zealand soldiers on a British Royal Navy LCI.

Also from the same website they interviewed New Zealanders who took part in the landings and the invasion from the air.

Also this map shows New Zealand air operation during the Battle of Normandy http://www.nzetc.org/etexts/WH2-2RAF/WH2-2RAF284a.jpg

I think more research on the topic needs to be done, there was defenetely a kiwi presence. --James Bond 22:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * While RNZAF and RNZN units and personnel took part in the invasion, I don't believe that any NZ Army units did. As such, the commandos are almost certainly not Kiwis. The photo's caption on its source website doesn't even state that the ship they're landing from was NZ manned. The website also states that "In June 1944 thousands of Kiwis were based in the United Kingdom, serving in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force" which more-or-less confirms that the Commandos aren't from New Zealand. --Nick Dowling 07:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


 * They are however still New Zealanders and are therefore just as much of a part of our history as Ernest Rutherfurd, even though most of his work was done in Trinity College/Cambridge university. (Parallel drawn between Rutherfurd working outside of NZ and these soldiers working outside of NZ. - Faded_Mantis 09:08, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah just re read nick's message and realised that I hadn't understood it the first time. I agree with him and it is to touchy to include these soldiers as NZ commandos when we can't be sure, surely RNZAF men aren't in that boat...however, RNZN may be? - Faded_Mantis 05:08, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Confrontation with Indonesia
"Indonesia is New Zealand's closest neighbour" This statement is amazing. In what way is Indonesia NZ's closest neighbour? Physically? Politically? Militarily? It couldn't be more different. Needs explanation, or fixing. GrahamBould 12:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe I meant to write "closest Asian neighbour", but forgot the crucial word. --Loopy e 22:30, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Mike Subritzky's reply
Kia ora Folks, look, I am really busy but have taken some time off to actually add and expand your Wikimedia, which currently is sadly lacking in any 'actual' historical information in regards to New Zealand history. Now I note that you folk have completely removed the article on "Operation Overdue" from the New Zealand Military History page. Whanau, I don't know where any of you live but here in New Zealand, the New Zealand Police are the 4th arm of the New Zealand Armed Forces...did you not know that?

I am no rocket scientist, however I have written or been involved in more than 30 books in regards New Zealand and New Zealand history. With regards to Operation Overdue. The 'trivia' that I included, which you have since deleted was an actual eye witness account, written in the first person. Do you not realise that absolute historic significance of such an account?

To date you have virtually nothing on New Zealand Military history and if you continue 'hack and slash' that which is put up on your website, then actual persons who lived and breathed these historic times will simply choose not to be involved...think about it.

Regards,

Mike Subritzky

your trivia statement continued
This article's quality seems to be gowing downhill at the moment. The main issue is the addition of bloated sections on minor operations. For instance, the activities of the small (78 man) NZ truce monitoring force in Zibmbawe are currently covered if far more detail than would be appropriate in a dedicated article on this topic, much less in an article which is meant to be an overview of NZ military history. The coverage of NZ military support to scientific opertions in Antartica is also far too detailed (for instance "On 15 December 1973, Van 50, used during construction of the "new" South Pole Station was loaded by Kiwi Cargo Handlers in to VXE6 Squadron Hercules (JD 9130), and was flown to the South Pole."). The entry on operations in Zimbawe is also littered with unsourced POV statements (for instance "The elections were said to be about giving the black population a free and fair vote, however, many, many black Rhodesians wanted to vote for Ian Smith but were barred from such a vote under the terms of the Lancaster agreement" ).

As a starting point, I've split the coverage of Operation Midford into a seperate article. --Nick Dowling 11:30, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've also removed the nominal roll of people involved in retrieving and identifying the bodies of the victims of the Air New Zealand crash in Antarctica. While these men and women doubtlessly did a good job, this isn't really the place to identify them by name as this is an overview of NZ military history (eg, would a nominal roll of all the New Zealanders who fought in WW1 be appropriate here? - I think not). Mike, I'd respectfully suggest you provide an overview of events in this article and include links back to your own website and/or create articles on the individual topics for the benefit of readers who would like to read about the topic in greater detail. --Nick Dowling 10:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with you here, Nick. With regard to Operation Overdue, Mike has just restored everything, but this level of detail should go definitely into its own article about the operation (and be cleaned up to be NPOV), not this overview of NZ's military history. The roll would perhaps have place in said article. I've directed Mike here on his talk page, in case he hasn't seen it. --Loopy e 07:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think Operation Overdue main bit should be in the main Air New Zealand Flight 901 article. I am also concerned about all those quoates, exactly where are they from and under which copyright? - SimonLyall 00:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Mike, can I please suggest that you take the time to review other wikipedia articles on national military histories? Nominal rolls, lists of casualties by name, etc, are totally out of place in summary articles like this one. While I don't know enough about the NZ Wars to be sure, I suspect that the sections on individual regiments in the wars should be seperate articles as they're invidually not significant enough to be listed in this article. --Nick Dowling 08:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

New Zealand 2nd Division
There is a separate article on this formation with comparatively sketchy info. As a suggestion, should some of the North Africa detail be transferred there? It would better suit the History article to be a summary, IMO. As a separate issue, are there views on a separate NZ task force, within the Military history project? Folks at 137 11:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

"Operation Wells and Operation Fargo 1987" ?
I am very sceptical on the Operation Wells and Operation Fargo 1987 section; is it even true? Unless it can be cited I think it should be removed as a hoax. Brian | (Talk) 09:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The section was added by User:Mike subritzky, who made very substantial contributions to the article which as far as I am aware are considered useful. He also uploaded an image of a letter signed by David Lange on Prime Ministerial letterhead (since deleted for copyright reasons). The image may have been in breach of copyright, but I think the contents are relevant:
 * 19 May 1987


 * Air Marshall D M Crooks, CB, OBE
 * Chief of Defence Staff


 * I hereby instruct you to dispatch immediately a RNZAF C130 aircraft with sufficient military personnel aboard to act as required to protect New Zealand's interests in Fiji


 * David Lange


 * Admins can see the image of the letter at.


 * mentions Operation Wells.


 * I doubt that the incident is a hoax. It may be too minor to be included on the page, but I have little doubt that further digging could produce more information. Since the incident preceded widespread use of the internet, that digging would need to be done in libraries.-gadfium 18:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, why I was unsure was because 1) It does not really say what happened, and 2) the only source given is "Mike Subritzky's Operational Diary 1987" which makes it OR. Also this makes it look as NZ ordered force against Fiji to stop the Coup, Lange never ordered military action against Fiji [New Zealand Defence Quarterly, Winter 1995.] the idea of military action [David Lange, My Life, page 224] by the SAS in was discussed between Lange and the Chief of Defence, but never progressed beyond that stage. This was because Lange talked to his then Australian counterpart, Bob Hawke [Hansard, Questions of the Day, 19 November 1987.] about the possibility of military action in Fiji against Rabuka's coup. Hawke was against military action. Lange was annoyed, as this meant New Zealand would have to go it alone. This should be expanded to say what they did, I’m picking, but not sure that it would have mainly be to evac kiwis.


 * Is it possible to put that letter off site, so I can have a view of it? Brian | (Talk) 21:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd email it to you, except that I can't include attachments through the Wikipedia email interface. Email me so I have your address, and I'll send you the image back. The image is about 500 kb.-gadfium 02:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Length
This page is in serious need of shortening. I realise this issue has been addressed before, and nothing seems to have been done, but I think if the page is to be accessible it has to be cut in length. New Zealand in World War I, New Zealand in World War II (which redirects here) and New Zealand in the Vietnam War are clearly deserving of their own articles anyway, so I propose shifting the text of these sections to new pages and creating summaries on this page. These sections (and NZ Land Wars, which already has its own page) are way too long for subsections, and make the page unmanagable. Their length also creates a bit of an imbalance when compared to the one sentence (!) on the whole of pre-European Maori warfare and the short paragraph on the Musket Wars. Come on guys, its an important topic, but even New Zealand and History of New Zealand aren't this long!

I will give about a week for people to discuss this, then if there are no objections, start making changes. --Helenalex 09:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You could save a lot of space by moving the bit on the Battle of Crete out and reducing the sections on Operation Deep Freeze, the Malayan emergency and Vietnam War. --Nick Dowling 09:21, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, I think most things should be reduced. I'm not sure if NZ in the Malayan Emergency or NZ in Operation Deep Freeze are deserving of pages of their own, but if someone thinks they are I don't see why not. The Ross Dependency page could definetely use a history section, so maybe most of the Deep Freeze stuff could go into there? The Battle of Crete section I will probably just move onto a NZ in WWII page, and leave that up to the experts to tinker with. Generally I don't like deleting anything which isn't obvious crap; I'm more inclined to move things to their own pages if they threaten to overwhelm other pages. --Helenalex 10:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Helenalex's proposal with regard to WWI, WWII and Vietnam War. The Land Wars section should be reduced, making sure that all information here is already in the New Zealand Land Wars article. I don't have an opinion at present on the other sections, but be bold!-gadfium 17:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Nice work. The article is now of a much more appropriate length and reads better. --Nick Dowling 10:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks :) --Helenalex 01:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Māori tribal warfare before 1806
I'd like to see what the sources for this section are - also wonder where the description 'warrior culture' came from and who said it, and what they meant by it. In the meantime I have taken it out as it seems a overstated - what about the majority who were gardeners and hunters or weavers or carvers or house builders rather than warriors Kahuroa 03:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I wasn't trying to claim that Maori were all warriors or spent all their time fighting - as I also wrote, no one really knows about the frequency of warfare - just that warriors seem to have been held in high regard. Most of them would have been gardeners, hunters etc most of the time, but hey, its a military history and it doesn't mention what Pakeha did when they weren't off getting killed for Britain.


 * In terms of sources, I basically threw in what I remembered from Making Peoples. It was basically a quick n dirty revision of the original section, which dealt with the subject in one sentence... Please feel free to rewrite it, I just felt it needed something a bit better than what was there before. --Helenalex 00:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Cheers, yeah, it is definitely better than what was there before, just tweaking it slightly to avoid misperceptions. Might have another quick edit too Kahuroa 05:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Split Page Up?
in stead of shortening the page, should it be split up into several pages, we could even start a new project, Military History of New Zealand.Also under the scope of Wikiproject Military history, and Wikiproject New Zealand. can that bit, it already exists Comments? Blacksmith2talk 04:56, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The page is only 45 KB long, which seems perfectly reasonable for this kind of topic. For instance, United States Marine Corps article is over twice as long. As such, I don't think that there's any reason to further reduce the length of this article or split it into several articles as long as it remains free of the kind of trivia which was being added to it a while ago. --Nick Dowling 05:05, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Military history of New Zealand during World War II Just noticed thatBlacksmith2talk 08:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

On further investigation, there are links to this throught out the article, so in a way the article is already split up.this is just the main page, should we have a table of contents or list these in the see also part, Blacksmith2talk 08:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The page is already mostly a summary of more detailed articles on individual conflicts. I think any split would be detrimental to the overview this article provides.-gadfium 09:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * gadfium, i have already discovered that, move on to my last comment.Blacksmith2talk 09:35, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Each section of the article already contains a link to the main article on this topic at the top of the section, so including these links again in a 'see also' section or adding a table of contents would be totally unnecessary IMO. For what it's worth, I think that the article's structure is pretty good, and what it needs most is more citations of sources and references. If you haven't already done so, I'd suggest that you look at other national military history articles for ideas. --Nick Dowling 10:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)