Talk:William J. Fox

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:William J. Fox/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: PizzaKing13 (talk · contribs) 18:47, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Dumelow (talk · contribs) 20:20, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I'll take this one - Dumelow (talk) 20:20, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing this! I'll get to it soon. PizzaKing13 (¡Hablame!) 🍕👑 19:45, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@Dumelow: All the criteria 1 comments should be resolved. PizzaKing13 (¡Hablame!) 🍕👑 23:38, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, looks good. Passing for GA. Thanks for checking the details below, I've learned a few new things here! - Dumelow (talk) 07:08, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

1. Well-written

Criteria: the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

Military career

• In 1918, Fox enlisted in the United States Army. He trained and studied at the University of Southern California (USC)

Was a bit confusing to me. He was an enlisted soldier but was given permission to study at the university during his enlistment?

• "In 1918, Fox enlisted in the Army. He took his initial training on the grounds of the University of Southern California (USC), where he would learn infantry skills and attend classes at USC." FLAM p. 5

• "Fox was selected to join officer candidate school, and by 1925, he attained the rank of sergeant. Beginning in 1925, Fox took flying lessons at Mines Field, the modern-day Los Angeles International Airport, and after obtaining his pilot license, Fox was a flight instructor. In 1926, Fox became a military officer and was given the rank of second lieutenant."

Again, the chronology confused me. He joined officer candidate school but then became a sergeant and then trained as a pilot but didn't receive his commission until the next year?

• This is the order is happened in. He was a sergeant by 1925 then a second lieutenant in 1926.

• "He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1929, but later resigned his commission in 1932"

Don't think we need to say "later" here, the reader knows 1932 is after 1929.

• Removed "later"

• "By then, he had accumulated 200 flying hours and he was commissioned into the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a student pilot with the rank of First Lieutenant"

You don't need capitals on the rank here

• lowercased

• "On 16 December 1940, Fox became the commander of the VMS-7R United States Marine Corps Reserve squadron in Long Beach, California."

Do we know what the role of the squadron was?

This is also the only place you have used day-month-year format, everywhere else is month-day-year

• fixed

• "On January 31, 1943, Fox suffered a spine injury when he fell off a 40-foot high bluff during a Japanese bombing of Guadalcanal for which he received a Purple Heart."

Would "spinal injury" be better here?

• changed to "spinal injury"

• "during which, he flew a captured a Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero as a part of an aerial demonstration in San Diego."

Surplus "a" before "Japanese" in this sentence, you could also probably lose the one before "part".

• removed both "a"s

Civil engineering career

• I am not sure splitting his civilian and military careers works for this subject, I found it too much to jump from 1947 back to 1923. Perhaps a split into pre-war, WWII and post-war sections would work better.

• Rearranged as such

• Again I am struggling to work out what he was doing. If he was enlisted in the army from 1918 to 1926 how did he attend two colleges and also practise as a civil engineer in local government?

• Source doesn't elaborate further than saying he did it "Along with his military activities".

• "Fox retired from civil engineering in 1955 and resigned from all his chief engineer and coordinator positions"

Was he still "county engineer"? Might be easier to say he "resigned from his local government positions" or "... Los Angeles County positions"?

• Changed to "resigned from his local government positions"

Later life and death

• "He became a member of the San Miguel charro team[5] and later the Mexico national charro team."

Is this a sport, or a display team or something else?

• Not sure. I think it's a display team.

Awards and decorations

• "Among Fox's awards and decorations included the Legion of Merit with "V" device, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, and the Air Medal with two oak leaf clusters."

"included" sounds strange to me after "among". I would go with either "Among Fox's awards and decorations were the Legion of Merit..." or "Fox's awards and decorations included the Legion of Merit..."

• Changed to the latter

Lead/infobox

• "Fox oversaw the construction various military airfields, including Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Irvine, California and Henderson Field in Guadalcanal, both of which he commanded."

Missing "of" after "construction"

• Fixed

The infobox has him joining the USMC in 1941. Is that how it works in the US forces or would he remain in the reserve but just be on active service? I note the principal source is titled ""William Joseph Fox – Brigadier General United States Marine Corps Reserve – Marine Aviator, Civil Engineer, Stuntman, Charro" implying his general's commission was with the reserve at least?

A Google search says reservists can be on active service so I changed mentions of USMC to USMCR

2. Verifiable with no original research

Criteria: it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline; reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose); it contains no original research; and it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.

Resolved

• All information is cited inline throughout; information in the lead and infobox is supported in the main text
• The USMC document link is broken but the LCCN and OCLC ID numbers resolve correctly
• Sources look to be reliable enough for the information cited
• I didn't pick up on any overly close paraphrasing form the sources
• Sourcing spotchecks:

"He also served as a member of the California State Planning Commission from 1934 to 1937." checks out to Log Book

"Fox died in Fillmore on April 11, 1993" checks out to the NYT obit

"in 1926, he became the chief engineer of the Los Angeles County Planning Commission." checks out to the LAT obit

"In 1959, Fox moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where he wanted to learn the Spanish language so that he could move to Spain to retire. While there, however, he stated that he "liked the horses, the surrounding country and the people I met" and eventually remained in Mexico and became a charro, a type of Mexican horse rider." checks out to Sports Illustrated

3. Broad in its coverage

Criteria: it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Resolved

• Article is a little short but covers all periods of his life in a nreasonable level of detail

4. Neutral

Criteria: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Resolved

• I picked up no issues with WP:NPOV

5. Stable

Criteria: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Resolved

• Article history shows it to be stable and not subject to any content disputes

6. Illustrated

Criteria: media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Resolved

• Image of subject has an appropriate fair use tag. I presume you have checked there are no PD images of him available, unusual for an American military subject.
• Image of airfield is freely licensed as a personal work by the uploader.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by TechnoSquirrel69 (talk) 05:07, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that after retiring from the US Marine Corps Reserve, Brigadier General William J. Fox moved to Mexico and became a charro?

• Source: Wilfer, Mike (August 24, 2022). "William Joseph Fox – Brigadier General United States Marine Corps Reserve – Marine Aviator, Civil Engineer, Stuntman, Charro". Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum.

• • ALT1: ... that William J. Fox was a US Marine Corps Reserve brigadier general, engineer, stuntman, and charro? Source: Wilfer, Mike (August 24, 2022). "William Joseph Fox – Brigadier General United States Marine Corps Reserve – Marine Aviator, Civil Engineer, Stuntman, Charro". Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/David Munyurangabo

Improved to Good Article status by PizzaKing13 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 27 past nominations.

PizzaKing13 (¡Hablame!) 🍕👑 07:41, 12 October 2025 (UTC).

• The article is new enough and long enough. Everything is well-sourced, neutral, and free of copyright violations. The article is presentable and the hook is sourced, interesting, and short enough (I prefer ALT0). The QPQ is also done. It is good to go. 🍗TheNuggeteer🍗 (My "blotter") 13:27, 22 October 2025 (UTC)