Talk:Alejandro Melchor

This article is rated Stub-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Biography

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article has been automatically rated by a bot or other tool because one or more other projects use this class. Please ensure the assessment is correct before removing the `\|auto=` parameter.

Tambayan Philippines Low‑importance

	Philippines portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Tambayan Philippines, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics related to the Philippines on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Tambayan PhilippinesWikipedia:WikiProject Tambayan PhilippinesTemplate:WikiProject Tambayan PhilippinesPhilippine-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.

Pontoon bridges[edit]

It strikes me that this article might be a bit overbroad in asserting "Melchor was known for designing the pontoon bridges used by the U.S. Army during the Second World War." I frankly doubt that the U.S. Army used bridges designed by him in non-Philippine theaters. I do see that he is credited here and here with being the inventor of the pontoon bridge, but the WP article on that speaks of pontoon bridges having been in use centuries prior to his birth.

I see that Donald H. Dyal; Brian B. Carpenter; Mark A. Thomas (April 1996), Historical dictionary of the Spanish American War, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 2, ISBN 9780313288524 (see this), apparently being a book by a daughter, contains a snippet saying, "My father received a Legion of Merit from the U.S. Government for his work on pontoon bridges that were widely ...", but I have no access to look further at that. Perhaps someone with access to a U.S. library might check this out further. Also, this 1942 photo might be useful in this article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]