Talk:No. 605 Squadron RAF

Various improvements (November 2024)

Just in case anybody is the slightest bit interested, here is the reasoning behind some edits I am going to implement in the coming days.

• To the middle and far east - section retitled as 'Malta and the Far East'

The population of Malta would probably be quite offended to find themselves described as 'Middle-eastern'. The text will get a serious overhaul too, because the first line could read as if 'it' (HMS Argus?) "was retained as part of the island's defences". Perhaps if we use 'they' to describe the squadron (it's a collective noun, so treating squadron as a plural is permitted, in British English at least), we would avoid confusion as to what 'it' refers to. Better still, re-write the section completely. And a mention and link to Club Runs would provide further background too.

• Night Intruders

At this time, the Mosquito pilots used their wing-tips to divert V1 flying bombs off course whilst en route to London.

Well, that is what the Shropshire Star says, but I don't buy it (pun). Firstly, although the wing-tip manoeuvre is famous, only sixteen out of over 1600 V-1s were brought down this way. And it seems much more likely that Spitfires and Tempests operating in daylight used this technique, not 605 sqdn Mosquitos flying at night. Secondly, it didn't divert the V-1s off-course, it caused them to lose control and crash, which might be described as diverting off-course in the same way that flying into a mountain could be described as 'landing prematurely'. So the Shropshire Star gets no stars. I think they were primarily constructing an article around the Duchess of Cambridge's grandfather - does he still warrant a mention?

Finally, Mosquito TA122 is indeed at the de Havilland Museum, but whoever added 'on the original factory site' must have been smoking some powerful ganja.

WendlingCrusader (talk) 23:25, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

The 'Squadron bases' table is a mess in terms of column widths, with numerous dates taking up two lines for no apparent reason.

Help:Table#Width says Setting widths is discouraged for the most part on Wikipedia because it interferes with the ability of the browser to adjust content and Verbose notes columns are almost always a problem,.

I have attempted to remedy this issue without resorting to removing the 'verbose' notes, but after several attempts I have given up. My knowledge of arranging tables is too limited.

WendlingCrusader (talk) 22:30, 10 November 2024 (UTC)