Need help with categorization for a wwii prisoner of war [closed]

+7 votes
263 views
I am working on a profile of my employer, Dr. E. P. Gosline, who was a prisoner of war for 41-1/2 months in Japan after the Battle of Corregidor.  I'm not much of a military scholar, so I'm having trouble following the military categories.  I have included the information I have on his profile.  I would appreciate if someone could help point me to the correct/appropriate categories I should list on his profile.  And to the correct military template I should use.

Thanks so much in advance for your help,

Karen
WikiTree profile: Eugene Gosline
closed with the note: question was answered
in Policy and Style by Karen Herndon G2G6 Mach 1 (11.0k points)
closed by Karen Herndon
Thanks Natalie & Kevin, I appreciate your pointing me in the right direction.  I kept getting lost in the categories section, lol.
It is! I get lost myself, especially when two nearly identical categories exist.

2 Answers

+6 votes
Hi Leah,

Here are some of the categories to add to his profile

[[Category: World War II, POW]]
----
{{Image|file=Photos-275.gif
|align=c
|size=380
|caption=
}}
<center>
'''This Category is part of the [[Project:World_War_II|World War II Project]]'''
</center>
----
[[Category: World War II, United States of America]]
by Kevin Conroy G2G6 Pilot (245k points)
edited by Kevin Conroy
I would not use WWII, Japan for this person. He was a prisoner of Japan, but an American soldier. Maybe I misunderstand the category, though.
+5 votes
There is a category for

[[Category: Silver Star Medal]]

[[Category: World War II Coast Artillery Corps]]

 

Most WWII Categories are under

[[Category: World War II, United States of America]]

and there is

[[Category: World War II POW Japanese Camps]]
by Natalie Trott G2G Astronaut (1.3m points)
also

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:World_War_II has a template for adding service dates.

 

and the POW roll of honor:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Prisoner_of_War
Forex: here is a POW I've been working on. I need to add his wife and siblings.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Allman-689

 

So, you could create a category for the theater ribbons. I looked up the Asiatic Theater ribbon and its name was the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal. So the cat would be:

[[Category: Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal]] and it would be a red category once you add it. Then you would need to edit the category to add it to:

[[Category: Campaign Medals, US Military Decorations]] which already exists.  

The Philippine Defense Medal and the rest would also need to be set up.

Natalie, I'm having trouble locating the Philippine Defense Medal , do you think it would go in the Category: Military Decorations, United States of America ?

I just read the wiki and it looks like those were awarded by the Phillippines, but recognized by the US, so I'm not sure. I'm reading the wiki's sources to see if I can figure it out.

...

Ok, I'd put it here:

[[Category: Military Decorations, Philippines]]. The Phillippine Liberation Medal is there, too. (another WWII medal awarded by the PI)
Thank you!   I would have never figured that out.  I appreciate your taking the time to help me, because I want to be sure I get the ribbons in the right places.  If I got them messed up, it would feel like I was dishonoring Dr. Gosline and his service.
I feel the same way. I've left medals OFF several profiles because I couldn't figure out how to place them.

So, I have one last question, then I think I'm done, 

For the actual POW camp [Fukuoka POW Camp #1 - Kashii (Pine Tree Camp) Kyushu Island 33-130] ...  are there any categories for these?

Make that last two questions:

I found the 60th Air Defense Regiment, but is there a "Battery E" category?

our intent is to have modern military organizations down to the regimental level, there are just too many battalions, companies, platoons, etc to get things down to that level.

 

for the ribbons, it should be

[[Category: Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal]]  instead of

[[Category: Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal]]

it was created without the dash, and we are waiting on things to settle down to rename it.

also, the intent when defining military status is to list the only the most specific category, not all of the parents, i.e. you currently have

World War II, United States of America 

World War II, United States Army 

World War II Coast Artillery Corps 

60th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, United States Army, World War II

World War II, POW

World War II, POW, United States of America.

the only ones needed since they are sub-categories of the others are:

60th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, United States Army, World War II

World War II, POW, United States of America.

Thanks Keith!  I think I have it all cleaned up now.  Appreciate the input.

:)
There are only 2 Japanese camps set up so far.

There is a list of Japanese POW camps on wikipedia, which I have not checked out as far as sources go, which is rather long.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese-run_internment_camps_during_World_War_II

 

Fukuoka is listed as a camp in Japan. All that is present is one cat for Burma and one for Bataan.

So the category, it seems to me, would be

[[Category: Fukuoka 17]] then it would be under [[Category: World War II POW Japanese Camps, Japan]] and that would be under [[Category: World War II POW Japanese Camps]].
Ok, I am thoroughly confused by the layout of the medals categories. I see there are dashes in the European-African-Middle Eastern campaign but none in the Asiatic-Pacific. Are dashes bad? They're not like the "&" in a category name, right?

Then, there are three different sub cats with service awards or "and service awards". If I look up a medal and it's classified as a service award, I can play "let's look in every sub-category and see if it's there" because the category search is a frustration in itself.

I want to get things right but it's tough.

dashes are fine, it is just a case of who created the category, and where did they look for checking the actual name of it.

when i started adding in all of the US decorations, having all medals in a single category was busy, so i tried breaking them down into sub categories as they were grouped on the wikipedia page, but that also was an issue of making some sense to military people, but civilians would have a hard time understanding the groupings.  i went ahead and added the decoration name/ribbon and hot linked them to the individual decoration page, so if you go to http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Military_Decorations%2C_United_States_of_America

you will see the US decorations listed, broken down into current and obsolete sections.  for foreign decorations authorized for wear by US military personnel, i have started to add them to a sub category for them that will take you to the individual page right now.  it is not a complete listing, and eventually i will make that page similar to the US page where they will be grouped by country and have names/ribbons that are hot linked.

 

I appreciate your work and your explanation.  I am a vet married to a retired service person and I understand a bit about medals, but I didn't even realize there was an obsolete group of medals that was apart from the main ones (I guess the "current" ones) here!

Thanks for your help. If I need to add a medal now, I know who to contact if I have a question!

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