Rear-Admiral Hardy joined the Royal Navy sometime before 1688 and saw action in the Battles of Barfleur and La Hougue in 1692. In 1702 he took command of HMS Pembroke. After fighting in the Battle of Cádiz, he discovered the location of the Franco-Spanish fleet, leading to the Battle of Vigo Bay. In August 1707, while escorting a convoy to Lisbon, Hardy's squadron met that of René Duguay-Trouin, chasing him until dusk and then returning to the convoy. Returning to England, Hardy was court martialled for not fully engaging Duguay-Trouin, but was acquitted and returned to the Mediterranean in 1708 to see further combat. He was promoted to rear-admiral in 1711. In 1715 he was second-in-command of the Baltic Fleet during in the Great Northern War. He was dismissed in 1716, possibly because of Jacobite sympathies.
Three years after his last visit to these pages, Ian brings another Australian aviator to FA. Eric Harrison made the country's first military flight, in March 1914, and helped lay the basis for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Along with Henry Petre, he established Australia's first air base at Point Cook, Victoria, and its inaugural training unit, the Central Flying School. During World War I, Harrison was in charge of instructing pilots of the Australian Flying Corps. He joined the RAAF as a founding member in 1921, and spent much of his subsequent career in technical services and air accident investigation. Promoted to group captain in 1935, he served until his sudden death at the end of World War II. Harrison's technical abilities and long association with military flying in Australia earned him the title of "Father of the RAAF" for many years, until the mantle was assumed by Air Marshal Sir Richard Williams.
Another in a series by Cplakidas focusing on early Muslim history, this article details the life and times of Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath. A distinguished Arab nobleman and general under the early Umayyad Caliphate, he was most notable for leading a failed rebellion against the Umayyad viceroy of the east, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, in 700–703. According to Cplakidas' nomination statement, "His story is essentially the story of the Iraqi Arabs under the Umayyads, and especially during the governorship of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf".
Another of Harry's works on siege actions in the British Isles, this article concerns a hostage situation in London in 1985. According to Harry's nomination statement, it is "mostly remembered today as the first time a police officer from a dedicated armed unit shot a suspect. Up until that point, most suspects cornered by armed police either surrendered or shot themselves. It marked a turning point from the Dixon of Dock Green image of an entirely unarmed police force (which was always a myth) towards the use of more professional teams of specialist armed officers to deal with armed criminality." The protagonist had already fatally stabbed his sister-in-law before taking her daughter and his own daughter hostage; he was shot twice during the action but both he and the girls survived; he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
After a hiatus of 18 months, PB returns to the FA lists with another in his series on German warships. Friedrich Carl was an armoured cruiser built in the early 1900s for the German Imperial Navy. Commissioned in 1903, she was a part of the main German battleship force until she was placed in reserve in 1909. Friedrich Carl was recommissioned upon the outbreak of war in 1914, and operated in the Baltic Sea until November that year, when she struck two Russian mines and sank; all but seven or eight members of her crew survived.
Germany commissioned nine armored cruisers between 1900 and 1909, all serving during World War I; three survived the war to be broken up for scrap in 1919–21. This Good Topic was promoted to a Featured Topic with the elevation of SMS Friedrich Carl to Featured Article status.
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