Scope and structure.

Local government.

Cumbria, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Sussex and Worcestershire are non-metropolitan counties of multiple districts with a county council. In these counties most services are provided by the county council and the district councils have a more limited role. Their areas each correspond exactly to ceremonial counties.  There are six metropolitan counties which are based on the major English conurbations; and they also correspond exactly to a ceremonial county and have multiple districts, but do not have county councils. They are Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands and West Yorkshire. In these counties the district councils provide the majority of services. Similarly, Berkshire is a non-metropolitan county with no county council and multiple districts and maps directly to a ceremonial county. Bristol, Herefordshire, Isle of Wight, Northumberland and Rutland are ceremonial counties consisting of a non-metropolitan county of a single district, and are known as unitary authorities.  Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Devon, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset and Staffordshire are non-metropolitan counties with multiple districts and a county council, where one or more districts have been split off to form unitary authorities. The effect is that the corresponding ceremonial county is larger than the non-metropolitan county of the same name and the county council is responsible for providing services in only part of the county. In Cornwall, Dorset, Durham, East Riding of Yorkshire, Shropshire and Wiltshire the bulk of the area is a unitary authority which shares the name of the ceremonial county and the rest of county is part of one or more other unitary authorities.  In total, there are 39 unitary authorities that do not share the names of any of the ceremonial counties. Bedfordshire and Cheshire are counties that consist of a number of unitary authorities, none of which has the same name as the ceremonial county. The City of London and Greater London are anomalous as ceremonial counties that do not correspond to any metropolitan or non-metropolitan counties, and pre-date their creation.

Institutions.

The metropolitan counties have passenger transport executives to manage public transport, a role undertaken by the local authorities of non-metropolitan counties and Transport for London in Greater London.  Large ceremonial counties often correspond to a single police force. For example, the four unitary authorities which make up Cheshire correspond to the same area as the Cheshire Constabulary. Some counties are grouped together for this purpose, such as Northumberland with Tyne and Wear to form the Northumbria Police area. In other areas a group of unitary authorities in several counties are grouped together to form police force areas, such as the Cleveland Police and Humberside Police. Greater London and the City of London each have their own police forces, the Metropolitan Police Service and the City of London Police.  The fire service is operated on a similar county basis, and the ambulance service is organised by the regions of England.  Most ceremonial counties form part of a single region, although Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire are divided between regions. Economic development is delivered using the regions, as is strategic planning.

Comparative areas and populations.

As of 2009, the largest county by area is North Yorkshire and the smallest is the City of London. The smallest county with multiple districts is Tyne and Wear and the smallest non-metropolitan county with a county council is Buckinghamshire. The county with the highest population is Greater London and the lowest is the City of London.  Greater London and the metropolitan counties are all in the 15 largest by population and the 15 smallest by area. Greater London has the highest population density, while the lowest is found in Northumberland. By area, the largest ceremonial county consisting of a single-district non-metropolitan county is Northumberland and the smallest is Bristol. By population the largest such county is Bristol and the smallest is Rutland.  Slough is the smallest unitary authority by area that is not also a ceremonial county and Cheshire East is the largest. Hartlepool is the smallest such unitary authority by population and Cheshire West and Chester is the largest. The "sui generis" Isles of Scilly is smaller both in terms of area and population. The highest population density of any metropolitan or non-metropolitan county is found in Portsmouth and the lowest is found in Northumberland.

History.

Origins.

Most English counties were established in the Middle Ages sometime between the 7th and 11th centuries. The early divisions form most of the current counties, albeit with adapted boundaries. Counties were used for the administration of justice, the organisation of the military, local government and parliamentary representation. Some larger counties were divided early on for many purposes, including Yorkshire (into Ridings), Lincolnshire (into Parts) and Sussex (into East and West). In 1832, the Great Reform Act divided larger counties for parliamentary purposes. Changes in the administration of the Poor Law in 1832 and later the implementation of sanitary authorities caused the use of traditional divisions for civil administration to wane. The like-named and broadly similarly shaped registration counties existed for these purposes from 1851 and were used for census reporting from 1851 to 1911. Their boundaries differed from existing counties as they were formed from the combined areas of smaller registration districts, which crossed historic county boundaries.  By the late nineteenth century, there was increasing pressure to reform the structure of English counties. A boundary commission was appointed in 1887 to review all English and Welsh counties, and a Local Government Bill was introduced to parliament in the following year. The resulting Local Government Act 1888 divided the counties into administrative counties, controlled by county councils and independent areas known as county boroughs.  The county councils took over many of the functions of the Quarter Sessions courts, as well as being given further powers over the years. The County of London was created from parts of Kent, Middlesex and Surrey. Each county borough was technically an administrative county of a single district, whilst a number of counties were divided into more than one administrative county; they were Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Suffolk, Sussex and Yorkshire.  The counties used for purposes other than local government, such as lieutenancy, also changed, being either a single administrative county or a grouping of administrative counties and associated county boroughs. The one exception was the City of London, which alone among counties corporate retained a separate lieutenancy and although part of the administrative County of London was also a county of itself for all other purposes. In legislation after 1888 the unqualified use of the term "county" refers to these entities, although the informal term "geographical county" was also used to distinguish them from administrative counties. They were shown on Ordnance Survey maps of the time under both titles, and are equivalent to the modern ceremonial counties.  There were considerable boundary changes between the counties over the years, with areas being exchanged and suburban areas in one county being annexed by county boroughs in another. A major realignment came in 1931, when the boundaries between Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire were adjusted by the Provisional Order Confirmation (Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire) Act which transferred 26 parishes between the three counties, largely to eliminate exclaves.

Proposals and reform.

A Local Government Boundary Commission was set up in 1945 with the power to merge, create or divide all existing administrative counties and county boroughs. If the commission's recommendations had been carried out the county map of England would have been completely redrawn. The review process was instead abandoned after the 1950 general election. A Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London was established in 1957 and a Local Government Commission for England in 1958 to recommend new local government structures.  The major outcomes of the work of the commissions came in 1965: The original County of London was abolished and was replaced by the Greater London administrative area, which also included most of the remaining part of Middlesex and areas formerly part of Surrey, Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire; Huntingdonshire was merged with the Soke of Peterborough to form Huntingdon and Peterborough, and the original Cambridgeshire was merged with the Isle of Ely to form Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely. A Royal Commission on Local Government in England was set up in 1966 and reported in 1969, and broadly recommended the complete redrawing of local government areas in England, abandoning the existing counties. Due to a change in government, the report did not translate into legislation.  On 1 April 1974, the Local Government Act 1972 came into force. This abolished the existing local government structure of administrative counties and county boroughs in England and Wales outside Greater London, replacing it with a new entirely 'two-tier' system. It created a new set of 45 counties, six of which were metropolitan and 39 of which were non-metropolitan. The historic county boundaries were retained wherever it was practicable.  However, some of the counties established by the Act were entirely new, such as Avon, Cleveland, Cumbria, Hereford and Worcester, and Humberside, along with the new metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands and West Yorkshire; based on the major conurbations. The counties of Cumberland, Herefordshire, Rutland, Westmorland, Huntingdon & Peterborough and Worcestershire were disestablished. The abolition of the county boroughs resulted in the distinction made between the counties for lieutenancy and those for county councils becoming unnecessary. Section 216 of the Act adopted the new counties for ceremonial and judicial purposes, replacing the previous non-administrative counties.  The Royal Mail was unable to follow the changes to county boundaries in 1965 and 1974 due to cost constraints and because several new counties had names that were too similar to post towns. The main differences were that Hereford and Worcester, Greater Manchester and Greater London could not be adopted and that Humberside had to be split into North Humberside and South Humberside.  Additionally, a number of anomalies were created where villages with a post town in another county took the county of the post town for postal addressing purposes. This meant that for directing the mail, England was divided into a somewhat different set of county boundaries from those established in the reforms. There was also a series of official county name abbreviations sanctioned for use. The use of these postal counties was abandoned by the Royal Mail in 1996.

Further changes.

The metropolitan counties ceased to have county councils in 1986 and a further reform in the 1990s allowed the creation of non-metropolitan counties of a single district. These became known as unitary authorities and effectively re-established county boroughs. The reform caused the geographic counties to be defined separately once again, and they became known as ceremonial counties.  As well as unitary authorities covering large towns, some small counties such as Rutland and Herefordshire were re-established as unitary authorities. In 2009 unitary authorities were created to replace each of the county councils of Cornwall, County Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire and Wiltshire. Bedfordshire and Cheshire were thus abolished as non-metropolitan counties but are retained as ceremonial counties, divided between their unitary authorities.  In 2019 and 2020, further structural changes have been made or are planned.

Culture.

There is no well-established series of official symbols or flags covering all the counties. From 1889 the newly-created county councils could apply to the College of Arms for coats of arms, often incorporating traditional symbols associated with the county. This practice continued as new county councils were created in 1965 and 1974. However these armorial bearings belong to the incorporated body of the county council and not to the geographic area of the counties themselves. As county councils have been abolished, and unitary authorities have been carved out, some of these symbols have become obsolete or effectively no longer represent the whole ceremonial county. A recent series of flags, with varying levels of official adoption, have been established in many of the counties by competition or public poll. County days are a recent innovation in some areas.  There are seventeen first-class county cricket teams that are based on historic English counties. They are Derbyshire, Durham, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Yorkshire. (The 18th first-class cricket county is Glamorgan in Wales.) There are also nineteen minor county teams. They are Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumberland, Devon, Dorset, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northumberland, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk and Wiltshire. The County Football Associations are roughly based on English counties, with exceptions such as the combinations of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire and Leicestershire and Rutland.

The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term 'county' is defined in several manners and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each of these demarcation structures. These different types of county each have a more formal name but are commonly referred to just as 'counties'. The current arrangement is the result of incremental reform. The original county structure has its origins in the Middle Ages. These counties are often referred to as historic or traditional counties.

郡在英格兰具有管理上,政治上,以及地理学上的划分作用许多现存的郡是基于古代传统,如盎格鲁萨克逊诸王国时代的划分。“县”(county)或“郡”(shire)又译为“夏”一词是源于古代的地区管理者“伯爵”(Count,在不列颠地区的伯爵后来更常称“Earl”)。


Early life.

Gish was born in Springfield, Ohio, the first child of Mary Robinson McConnell (1876–1948), an actress, and James Leigh Gish (1873–1912). Lillian had a younger sister, Dorothy, who also became a popular movie star.  Her mother was Episcopalian and her father was of German Lutheran descent. The first several generations of Gishes were Dunkard ministers. Gish's father was an alcoholic and left the family; her mother took up acting to support them. The family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois, where they lived for several years with Lillian's aunt and uncle, Henry and Rose McConnell. Their mother opened the Majestic Candy Kitchen, and the girls helped sell popcorn and candy to patrons of the old Majestic Theater, located next door. The girls attended St. Henry's School, where they acted in school plays.  In 1910, the girls were living with their aunt Emily in Massillon, Ohio, when they were notified that their father, James, was gravely ill in Oklahoma. The seventeen-year-old Lillian traveled to Shawnee, Oklahoma, where James's brother Alfred Grant Gish and his wife, Maude, lived. Her father, who by then was institutionalized in the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane in Norman, was able to travel the 35 miles to Shawnee and the two got reacquainted. She stayed with her aunt and uncle, and attended Shawnee High School there. Her father died in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1912, but she had returned to Ohio a few months before this.  When the theater next to the candy store burned down, the family moved to New York, where the girls became good friends with a next-door neighbor, Gladys Smith. Gladys was a child actress who did some work for director D. W. Griffith, and later took the stage name Mary Pickford. When Lillian and Dorothy were old enough they joined the theatre, often traveling separately in different productions. They also took modeling jobs, with Lillian posing for artist Victor Maurel in exchange for voice lessons.  In 1912, their friend Mary Pickford introduced the sisters to Griffith and helped get them contracts with Biograph Studios. Lillian Gish soon became one of America's best-loved actresses; she was 19 years old at the time, but told casting directors she was 16.

Career.

Early career.

Gish made her stage debut in 1902, at The Little Red School House in Risingsun, Ohio. From 1903 to 1904, she toured in "Her First False Step", with her mother and Dorothy. In the following year she danced with a Sarah Bernhardt production in New York City.

Film stardom at Biograph Studios (1912–1925).

After 10 years of acting on the stage, she made her film debut opposite Dorothy in Griffith's short film "An Unseen Enemy" (1912). At the time established thespians considered "the flickers" a rather base form of entertainment, but she was assured of its merits. Gish continued to perform on the stage, and in 1913, during a run of "A Good Little Devil", she collapsed from anemia. Lillian took suffering for her art to the extreme in a film career which became her obsession. One of the enduring images of Gish's silent film years is the climax of the melodramatic "Way Down East", in which Gish's character floats unconscious on an ice floe towards a raging waterfall, her long hair and hand trailing in the water. Her performance in these frigid conditions gave her lasting nerve damage in several fingers. Similarly, when preparing for her death scene in "La Bohème" over a decade later, Gish reportedly did not eat and drink for three days beforehand, causing the director to fear he would be filming the death of his star as well as of the character.  Lillian starred in many of Griffith's most acclaimed films, including "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), "Intolerance" (1916), "Broken Blossoms" (1919), "Way Down East" (1920), and "Orphans of the Storm" (1921). He utilized her expressive talents to the fullest, developing her into a suffering yet strong heroine. Having appeared in over 25 short films and features in her first two years as a movie actress, Lillian became a major star, becoming known as "The First Lady of American Cinema" and appearing in lavish productions, frequently of literary works such as "Way Down East". She became the most esteemed actress of budding Hollywood cinema.  She directed her sister Dorothy in one film, "Remodeling Her Husband" (1920), when D. W. Griffith took his unit on location. He told Gish that he thought the crew would work harder for a girl. Gish never directed again, telling reporters at the time that directing was a man's job. The film is now thought to be lost.

Work with MGM (1925–1928).

Gish reluctantly ended her work with Griffith in 1925 in order to take an offer from the recently formed MGM, which gave her more creative control. MGM offered her a contract in 1926 for six films, for which she was offered 1 million dollars ($13.4 million in 2015 dollars). She turned down the money, requesting a more modest wage and a percentage so that the studio could use the funds to increase the quality of her films — hiring the best actors, screenwriters, etc. By the late silent era Greta Garbo had usurped her as MGM's leading lady, and Gish's contract with MGM ended in 1928. Three films with MGM gave her near-total creative control: "La Bohème", "The Scarlet Letter" (both 1926), and "The Wind" (1928). "The Wind", Gish's favorite film of her MGM career, was a commercial failure with the rise of talkies, but is now recognized as one of the most distinguished works of the silent period. Though not a box-office hit as before, her work was respected artistically more than ever, and MGM pressed her with offers to appear in the new medium of sound pictures.

Sound debut, return to the stage, and television and radio.

Her debut in talkies was only moderately successful, largely due to the public's changing attitudes. Many of the silent era's leading ladies, such as Gish and Pickford, had been wholesome and innocent, but by the early 1930s (after the full adoption of sound and before the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced) these roles were perceived as outdated. The "ingenue"s diametric opposite, the vamp, was at the height of its popularity. Gish was increasingly seen as a "silly, sexless antique" (to quote fellow actress Louise Brooks's sarcastic summary of those who criticized Gish). Louis Mayer wanted to stage a scandal ("knock her off her pedestal") to garner public sympathy for Gish, but Lillian didn't want to act both on screen and off, and returned to her first love, the theater. She acted on the stage for the most part in the 1930s and early 1940s, appearing in roles as varied as Ophelia in Guthrie McClintic's landmark 1936 production of "Hamlet" (with John Gielgud and Judith Anderson) and Marguerite in a limited run of "La Dame aux Camélias". Of the former, she said, with pride, "I played a "lewd" Ophelia!"  Returning to movies, Gish was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1946 for "Duel in the Sun". The scenes of her character's illness and death late in that film seemed intended to evoke the memory of some of her silent film performances. She appeared in films from time to time for the rest of her life, notably in "The Night of the Hunter" (1955) as a rural guardian angel protecting her charges from a murderous preacher played by Robert Mitchum. She was considered for various roles in "Gone with the Wind" ranging from Ellen O'Hara, Scarlett's mother (which went to Barbara O'Neil), to prostitute Belle Watling (which went to Ona Munson).  Gish made numerous television appearances from the early 1950s into the late 1980s. Her most acclaimed television work was starring in the original production of "The Trip to Bountiful" in 1953. She appeared as Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in the short-lived 1965 Broadway musical "Anya". In addition to her later acting appearances, Gish became one of the leading advocates of the lost art of the silent film, often giving speeches and touring to screenings of classic works. In 1975, she hosted "The Silent Years", a PBS film program of silent films. She was interviewed in the television documentary series "Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film" (1980). Gish received a Special Academy Award in 1971, "For superlative artistry and for distinguished contribution to the progress of motion pictures". In 1979, she was awarded the Women in film Crystal Award in Los Angeles In 1984, she received an American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award, becoming only the second female recipient (preceded by Bette Davis in 1977) and the only recipient who was a major figure in the silent era. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1720 Vine Street.  Her last film role was appearing in "The Whales of August" in 1987 at the age of 93, with Vincent Price, Bette Davis, and Ann Sothern, in which Gish and Davis starred as elderly sisters in Maine. Gish's performance was received glowingly, winning her the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress. At the Cannes festival, Gish won a 10-minute standing ovation from the audience. Some in the entertainment industry were angry that Gish did not receive an Oscar nomination for her role in "The Whales of August". Gish herself was more complacent, remarking that it saved her the trouble of "losing to Cher".  Her final professional appearance was a cameo on the 1988 studio recording of Jerome Kern's "Show Boat", starring Frederica von Stade and Jerry Hadley, in which she affectingly spoke the few lines of "The Old Lady on the Levee" in the final scene. The last words of her long career were: "Good night".

Radio.

Gish starred in an episode of the popular CBS Radio series "Suspense". The episode "Marry for Murder" was broadcast on September 9, 1943. In 1944, Gish starred in an episode of "I Was There", broadcast on CBS. The episode dramatized the making of the film "The Birth of a Nation". On May 31, 1951, she starred in an adaptation of "Black Chiffon" on "Playhouse on Broadway".

Honors.

The American Film Institute named Gish 17th among the greatest female stars of Classic American cinema. In 1955, she was awarded the George Eastman Award, for distinguished contribution to the art of film, at the George Eastman Museum's (then George Eastman House's) inaugural Festival of Film Artists. She was awarded an Academy Honorary Award in 1971, and in 1984 she received an AFI Life Achievement Award. Gish was also awarded in the Kennedy Center Honors.  In 1979, she introduced "The Wind" at a screening at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles. She was a special guest at the Telluride Film Festival in 1983.

Bowling Green State University.

The Gish Film Theatre and Gallery of Bowling Green State University's Department of Theatre and Film was named for Lillian and Dorothy Gish. Gish was in attendance at the dedication on June 11, 1976; she accepted the honor for herself and her sister, who had died several years earlier. The University awarded Gish the honorary degree of Doctor of Performing Arts the next day. In 1982, the University accepted a collection of Gish films and photographs that had previously been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art. It solicited donations from Gish friends and associates to renovate the Gish Theatre and create an endowment in the 1990s. Following Gish's 1993 death, the University raised funds to enlarge its gallery to display memorabilia received from Gish's estate.  In February 2019, the University's Black Student Union called for the renaming of the Gish Theatre due to Gish's involvement with the controversial "The Birth of a Nation". In April 2019, a task force recommended removing the Gish name; the trustees unanimously voted to remove the name on May 3, 2019.  Mike Kaplan, co-producer The Whales of August (1987), Lillian Gish's final film, circulated a petition urging Bowling Green State University to restore the names of actresses Dorothy and Lillian Gish to the film theater. The protest was signed by over 50 film industry figures, including actors Helen Mirren and James Earl Jones and directors Bertrand Tavernier and Martin Scorsese.

Personal life.

Gish never married nor had any children. The association between herself and D.W. Griffith was so close that some suspected a romantic connection, an issue never acknowledged by Gish, although several of their associates were certain they were at least briefly involved. For the remainder of her life, she always referred to him as "Mr. Griffith". She was also involved with producer Charles Duell, and drama critic and editor George Jean Nathan. In the 1920s, Gish's association with Duell became something of a tabloid scandal when he sued her and made the details of their relationship public.  Gish was a survivor of the 1918 flu pandemic, having contracted the illness during the filming of "Broken Blossoms".  Gish learned French, German, and Italian during 15 years in Europe, which she first visited in 1917. George Jean Nathan praised Gish's acting glowingly—comparing her to Eleonora Duse. She maintained a close relationship with her sister Dorothy and with Mary Pickford for her entire life. Another of her closest friends was actress Helen Hayes, the "First Lady of the American Theatre". Gish was the godmother of Hayes's son James MacArthur, and designated Hayes (who survived her by less than a month) as a beneficiary of her estate.  Gish was a devout Episcopalian.

Political views.

Gish was a staunch Republican, and was a strong supporter of Ronald Reagan in the 1970s.  During the period of political turmoil in the US that lasted from the outbreak of World War II in Europe until the attack on Pearl Harbor, she maintained an outspoken non-interventionist stance. She was an active member of the America First Committee, an anti-intervention organization founded by retired General Robert E. Wood, with aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh as its leading spokesman. She said she was blacklisted by the film and theater industries until she signed a contract in which she promised to cease her anti-interventionist activities and never disclose the fact that she had agreed to do so.

Death.

Lillian Gish died of heart failure on February 27, 1993, aged 99. Her body was interred beside that of her sister Dorothy at Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City. Her estate was valued at several million dollars, the bulk of which went toward the creation of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Trust.

Legacy.

A retrospective of Gish's life and achievements was showcased in an episode of the Emmy award-winning PBS series, "American Masters".  The AllMovie Guide wrote on her legacy:  Turner Classic Movies wrote,

In popular culture.

The debut album of The Smashing Pumpkins, released on May 28, 1991, is entitled "Gish" in reference to her. Singer Billy Corgan explained in an interview, "My grandmother used to tell me that one of the biggest things that ever happened was when Lillian Gish rode through town on a train, my grandmother lived in the middle of nowhere, so that was a big deal..."  'Lillian Gish' is sometimes used as rhyming slang for needing to urinate and was referenced by Winston, a character in the Scottish BBC comedy "Still Game".

Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893February 27, 1993) was an American pioneering actress of the screen and stage, and a director and writer. Her film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was called "The First Lady of American Cinema", and is credited with pioneering fundamental film performance techniques.

莉莲·戴安娜·吉许(英语:Lillian Diana Gish}},1893年-10月14日-1993年-2月27日)是一名童星出身的美国电影演员,默片年代的银幕标志之一,奥斯卡金像奖终身成就奖得主,肯尼迪中心荣誉奖得主。


Rosenthal–Jacobson study.

Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson's study showed that, if teachers were led to expect enhanced performance from children, then the children's performance was enhanced. This study supported the hypothesis that reality can be positively or negatively influenced by the expectations of others, called the observer-expectancy effect. Rosenthal argued that biased expectancies could affect reality and create self-fulfilling prophecies.  All students in a single California elementary school were given a disguised IQ test at the beginning of the study. These scores were not disclosed to teachers. Teachers were told that some of their students (about 20% of the school chosen at random) could be expected to be "intellectual bloomers" that year, doing better than expected in comparison to their classmates. The bloomers' names were made known to the teachers. At the end of the study, all students were again tested with the same IQ test used at the beginning of the study. All six grades in both experimental and control groups showed a mean gain in IQ from before the test to after the test. However, First and Second Graders showed statistically significant gains favoring the experimental group of "intellectual bloomers". This led to the conclusion that teacher expectations, particularly for the youngest children, can influence student achievement. Rosenthal believed that even attitude or mood could positively affect the students when the teacher was made aware of the "bloomers". The teacher may pay closer attention to and even treat the child differently in times of difficulty.  Rosenthal predicted that elementary school teachers may subconsciously behave in ways that facilitate and encourage the students' success. When finished, Rosenthal theorized that future studies could be implemented to find teachers who would encourage their students naturally without changing their teaching methods. Rosenthal and Jacobson's study of the Pygmalion effect was criticized for both weak methodology and lack of replicability (see Pygmalion in the Classroom).  The prior research that motivated this study was done in 1911 by psychologists regarding the case of Clever Hans, a horse that gained notoriety because it was supposed to be able to read, spell, and solve math problems by using its hoof to answer. Many skeptics suggested that questioners and observers were unintentionally signaling Clever Hans. For instance, whenever Clever Hans was asked a question the observers' demeanor usually elicited a certain behavior from the subject that in turn confirmed their expectations. For example, Clever Hans would be given a math problem to solve, and the audience would get very tense the closer he tapped his foot to the right number, thus giving Hans the clue he needed to tap the correct number of times.

Students' views of teachers.

Teachers are also affected by the children in the classroom. Teachers reflect what is projected into them by their students. An experiment done by Jenkins and Deno (1969) submitted teachers to a classroom of children who had either been told to be attentive, or unattentive, to the teachers' lecture. They found that teachers who were in the attentive condition would rate their teaching skills as higher. Similar findings by Herrell (1971) suggested that when a teacher was preconditioned to classrooms as warm or cold, the teacher would start to gravitate towards their precondition. To further this concept, Klein (1971) did the same kind of study involving teachers still unaware of any precondition to the classroom but with the class full of confederates who were instructed to act differently during periods over the course of the lecture. "Klein reported that there was little difference between students' behaviors in the natural and the positive conditions." In a more observational study designed to remove the likes of the Hawthorne effect, Oppenlander (1969) studied the top and bottom 20% of students in the sixth grade from a school that tracks and organizes its students under such criteria.

In the workplace.

Leader expectations of the employee may alter leader behavior. This behavior that is expressed toward an employee can affect the behaviors of the employee in favor of the leader's expectations. The more an employee is engaged in learning activities, the higher the expectation is from the leader. In turn, the employee participates in more learning behavior. Leaders will show more leader behaviors such as leader-member exchange (trust, respect, obligation, etc.), setting specific goals, and allowing for more learning opportunities for employees, and giving employees feedback. These factors were brought about by Rosenthal's model of the Pygmalion effect.

The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon whereby others' expectations of a target person affect the target person's performance. The effect is named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved, or alternately, after the psychologist Robert Rosenthal. Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, in their book, applied the idea to teachers' expectations of their students affecting the students' performance, a view that has been undermined partially by subsequent research (e.g., Raudenbush [1984]).

皮格马利翁效应,又称毕马龙效应、罗森塔尔效应或期待效应,是指人(通常是指孩童或学生)在被赋予更高期望以后,他们会表现的更好的一种现象。皮格马利翁效应的命名取自希腊神话故事里面的一位名为皮格马利翁的雕刻家,他爱上了自己用象牙雕刻出来的女神雕像,由于他每天对着雕像说话,最后那座女神雕像变成一位真正的女神。皮格马利翁效应是一个自我应验预言发展。以此观点,内心常常带着负面期望的人们将会失败;而内心常常带着正面期望的人们将会成功。在社会学,这个效应经常被引用与教育或社会阶级有关。


Theory.

In the case of firearms, where the projectile follows a ballistic trajectory, front and rear sights must be aligned with the line of sight of the shooter to the target, producing what is known as the "point of aim" (POA) within the shooter's field of view. Sighting in is a process that the line of aim (known as the "sight axis") is adjusted to intersect with the trajectory of the bullet at the distance of the target, so the point of aim is calibrated to superimpose with the bullet's "point of impact" (POI). Iron sights provide horizontal and vertical reference points that allow the shooter to train the weapon.  Rear sights on rifles are usually mounted in a dovetail on the barrel or receiver, closer to the eye of the shooter, allowing for easy visual pick-up of the notch. Front sights are mounted to the barrel by dovetailing, soldering, screwing, or staking close to the muzzle, frequently on a ramp. Some front sight assemblies include a detachable hood intended to reduce glare, and if the hood is circular, then this provides a reference where the eye will naturally align one within the other.  In the case of handguns, the rear sight will be mounted on the frame (if the gun is a revolver), or on the slide (in the case of a semi-automatic). Exceptions are possible depending on the type of handgun. E.g., the rear sight on a snub-nose revolver is typically a trench milled into the top strap of the frame, and the front sight is the to-be-expected blade. Certain handguns may have the rear sight mounted on a hoop-like bracket that straddles the slide.  With typical blade- or post-type iron sights, the shooter would center the front sight's post in the notch of the rear sight and the tops of both sights should be level. Since the eye is only capable of focusing on one focal plane at a time, and the rear sight, front sight and target are all in separate planes, only one of those three planes can be in focus. Which plane is in focus depends on the type of sight, and one of the challenges to a shooter is to keep the focus on the correct plane to allow for best sight alignment. The general advice, however, is to focus on the front sight.  Due to parallax, even a tiny error in the angle of sight alignment results in a trajectory that diverges from the target on a trajectory directly relative to the distance from the target, causing the bullet to miss the target; for example, with a 10 meter air rifle shooter trying to hit the 10 ring, which is merely a diameter dot on the target at and with a diameter pellet, an error of only in sight alignment can mean a complete miss (a point of impact miss). At, that same misalignment would be magnified 100 times, giving an error of over, 1,500 times the sight misalignment. Increasing the distance between the front and rear sights (called the "sight radius" or "sighting line") helps to reduce eventual angle errors and will, in case the sight has an incremental adjustment mechanism, adjust in smaller increments when compared to a further identical shorter sighting line. With the front sight on the front end of the barrel, sight radius may be increased by moving the rear sight from the barrel onto the receiver or tang.  Sights for shotguns used for shooting small, moving targets (wing shooting or clay shooting) work quite differently. The rear sight is completely discarded, and the rear reference point is provided by the correct and consistent positioning of the shooter's head. A brightly colored (generally brass or silver-colored, white, or a fluorescent shade) round bead is placed at the end of the barrel. Often, this bead will be placed along a raised, flat "rib", which is usually ventilated to keep it cool and reduce mirage effects from a hot barrel. Rather than being aimed like a rifle or handgun, the shotgun is pointed with the focus always on the target, and the unfocused image of the barrel and bead are placed below the target (the amount below depends on whether the target is rising or falling) and slightly ahead of the target if there is lateral movement. This method of aiming is not as precise as that of a front sight/rear sight combination, but it is much faster, and the wide spread of shot allows a hit even if there is some error in aim. Some shotguns also provide a "mid-bead", which is a smaller bead located halfway down the rib, which allows more feedback on barrel alignment.  Shotguns may also come equipped with rifle-type sights. Typically, shotguns intended for turkey hunting have this arrangement.

Open sights.

Open sights generally are used where the rear sight is at significant distance from the shooter's eye. They provide minimum occlusion of the shooter's view, but at the expense of precision. Open sights generally use either a square post or a bead on a post for a front sight. To use the sight, the post or bead is positioned both vertically and horizontally in the center of the rear sight notch. For a center hold, the front sight is positioned on the center of the target, bisecting the target vertically and horizontally. For a 6 o'clock hold, the front sight is positioned just below the target and centered horizontally. A 6 o'clock hold is only good for a known target size at a known distance and will not hold zero without user adjustment if these factors are varied. From the shooter's point of view, there should be a noticeable space between each side of the front sight and the edges of the notch; the spaces are called "light bars", and the brightness of the light bars provides the shooter feedback as to the alignment of the post in the notch. Vertical alignment is done by lining up the top of the front post with the top of the rear sight, or by placing the bead just above the bottom of the V or U-notch. If the post is not centered in the V or U notch, the shot will not be accurate. If the post extends over the V or U-notch it will result in a high shot. If the post does not reach the top of the V or U-notch it will result in a low shot.  "Patridge" sights, named after inventor E. E. Patridge, a 19th-century American sportsman, consist of a square or rectangular post and a flat-bottomed square notch and are the most common form of open sights, being preferred for target shooting, as the majority of shooters find the vertical alignment is more precise than other open sights. "V-notch" and "U-notch" sights are a variant of the patridge which substitute a V- or U-shaped rear notch.  Other common open sight types include the "buckhorn", "semi-buckhorn", and "express". Buckhorn sights have extensions protruding from either side of the rear sight forming a large ring which almost meets directly above the "V" of the notch. The semi-buckhorn is similar but has a wider gently curving notch with the more precise "V" at its center and is standard on classic Winchester and Marlin lever-action rifles. Express sights are most often used on heavy caliber rifles intended for the hunting of dangerous big game, and are in the form of a wide and large "V" with a heavy white contrast line marking its bottom and a big white or gold bead front sight. These sights do not occlude the target as much as some other styles which is useful in the case of a charging animal. In cases where the range is close and speed far outweighs accuracy (e.g. the shooter is being charged by dangerous big-game), the front sight is used like a shotgun bead; the rear sight is ignored, and the bead is placed on the target. When more time is available, the bead is placed in the "V" of the rear sight.  Open sights have many advantages: they are very common, inexpensive to produce, uncomplicated to use, sturdy, lightweight, resistant to severe environmental conditions, and they do not require batteries. On the other hand, they are not as precise as other forms of sights, and are difficult or impossible to adjust. Open sights also take much more time to use—the buckhorn type is the slowest, patridge, "U" and "V" type notch sights are only a bit quicker; only the express sight is relatively fast. In addition, open sights tend to block out the lower portion of the shooter's field of view by nature, and because of the depth of field limitations of the human eye, do not work as well for shooters with less than perfect vision.

Aperture sights.

Aperture sights, also known as "peep sights", range from the "ghost ring" sight, whose thin ring blurs to near invisibility (hence "ghost"), to target aperture sights that use large disks or other occluders with pinhole-sized apertures. In general, the thicker the ring, the more precise the sight, and the thinner the ring, the faster the sight.  The theory of operation behind the aperture sight is often stated that the human eye will automatically center the front sight when looking through the rear aperture, thus ensuring accuracy. However, aperture sights are accurate even if the front sight is not centered in the rear aperture due to a phenomenon called parallax suppression. This is because, when the aperture is smaller than the eye's pupil diameter, the aperture itself becomes the entrance pupil for the entire optical system of target, front sight post, rear aperture, and eye. As long as the aperture's diameter is completely contained within the eye's pupil diameter, the exact visual location of the front sight post within the rear aperture ring does not affect the accuracy, and accuracy only starts to degrade slightly due to parallax shift as the aperture's diameter begins to encroach on the outside of the eye's pupil diameter. An additional benefit to aperture sights is that smaller apertures provide greater depth of field, making the target less blurry when focusing on the front sight.  In low light conditions the parallax suppression phenomenon is markedly better. The depth of field looking through the sight remains the same as in bright conditions. This is in contrast to open sights, where the eye's pupil will become wider in low light conditions, meaning a larger aperture and a blurrier target. The downside to this is that the image through an aperture sight is darker than with an open sight.  These sights are used on target rifles of several disciplines and on several military rifles such as the Pattern 1914 Enfield and M1917 Enfield, M1 Garand, the No. 4 series Enfields and the M16 series of weapons along with several others.

Ghost rings.

The ghost ring sight is considered by some to be the fastest type of aperture sight. It is fairly accurate, easy to use, and obscures the target less than nearly all other non-optical sights. Because of this, ghost ring sights are commonly installed on riot and combat shotguns and customized handguns, and they are also gaining ground as a backup sighting system on rifles. The ghost ring is a fairly recent innovation, and differs from traditional aperture sights in the extreme thinness of the rear ring and the slightly thicker front sight. The thin ring minimizes the occlusion of the target, while the thicker front post makes it easy to find quickly. Factory Mossberg ghost ring sights also have thick steel plates on either side of the extremely thin ring. These are to protect the sight's integrity in cases where, for example, the shotgun were to fall and impact a surface in a manner that would, in the absence of the steel plates on either side, damage or distort the shape of the ring.

Target aperture sights.

Target aperture sights are designed for maximum precision. The rear sight element (often called "diopter") is usually a large disk (up to 1 inch or 2.5 cm in diameter) with a small hole in the middle, and is placed close to the shooter's eye. High end target diopters normally accept accessories like adjustable diopter aperture and optical filter systems to ensure optimal sighting conditions for match shooters. Typical modern target shooting diopters offer windage and elevation corrections in to increments at. Some International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) (Olympic) shooting events require this precision level for sighting lines, since the final score of the top competitors last shots series is expressed in tenths of scoring ring points.  The complementing front sight element may be a simple bead or post, but is more often a "globe"-type sight, which consists of a cylinder with a threaded cap, which allows differently shaped removable front sight elements to be used. Most common are posts of varying widths and heights or rings of varying diameter—these can be chosen by the shooter for the best fit to the target being used. Tinted transparent plastic insert elements may also be used, with a hole in the middle; these work the same way as an opaque ring, but provide a less obstructed view of the target. High end target front sight tunnels normally also accept accessories like adjustable aperture and optical systems to ensure optimal sighting conditions for match shooters. Some high end target sight line manufacturers also offer front sights with integrated aperture mechanisms.  The use of round rear and front sighting elements for aiming at round targets, like used in ISSF match shooting, takes advantage of the natural ability of the eye and brain to easily align concentric circles. Even for the maximum precision, there should still be a significant area of white visible around the bullseye and between the front and rear sight ring (if a front ring is being used). Since the best key to determining center is the amount of light passing through the apertures, a narrow, dim ring of light can actually be more difficult to work with than a larger, brighter ring. The precise sizes are quite subjective, and depend on both shooter preference and ambient lighting, which is why target rifles come with easily replaceable front sight inserts, and adjustable aperture mechanisms.

Front aperture size selection.

Front aperture size is a compromise between a tight enough aperture to clearly define the aiming point and a loose enough aperture so as to not cause 'flicker'. When the aperture is too small, the boundary between the target and front aperture outline becomes indistinct, requiring the shooter to consciously or subconsciously generate small eye movements to measure the distance around the target. USA Shooting recommends a front aperture that creates at least 3 Minutes of Angle (MOA) of boundary space. In research performed by Precision Shooting, it was found that this increased shooter confidence, reduced hold times, and created more decisive shots. There may be an upper bound to the front aperture size that improves performance, however. In 2013, researchers performed experiments with the game of golf, specifically the skill of putting which is another skill that combines visual alignment with motor skills. They found that by manipulating the perceived size of the target (the golf hole) by surrounding it with concentric rings of various sizes, there was a phenomenon that improved performance when the target was surrounded by smaller circles thereby increasing its perceived size. They found that when the target was perceived as larger, performance increased.

Non-target aperture sights.

Aperture sights on military rifles use a larger aperture with a thinner ring, and generally a simple post front sight.  Rifles from the late 19th century often featured one of two types of aperture sight called a "tang sight" or a "ladder sight". Since the black powder used in muzzleloaders and early cartridges was not capable of propelling a bullet at high speed, these sights had very large ranges of vertical adjustments, often on the order of several degrees, allowing very long shots to be made accurately. The.45-70 cartridge, for example, was tested by the military for accuracy at ranges of up to 1,500 yards, which required 3 degrees of elevation. Both ladder and tang sights folded down when not in use to reduce the chance of damage to the sights. Ladder sights were mounted on the barrel, and could be used as sights in both the folded and unfolded states. Tang sights were mounted behind the action of the rifle, and provided a very long sight radius, and had to be unfolded for use, though rifles with tang sights often had open sights as well for close range use. Tang sights often had vernier scales, allowing adjustment down to a single minute of arc over the full range of the sight.

Shotgun sights.

Among those utilizing shotguns for hunting of upland game, directing a shotgun toward its target is considered a slightly different skill than aiming a rifle or pistol. Shotgunners are encouraged to "point" a shotgun versus the intentional aiming of a rifle. Some even espouse a mentality that eliminates the concept of "aim" altogether. Because much of shotgunning involves moving targets, the concept of a sight is considered a subconscious aid. The "bead", which is a small, spherical device attached to the barrel, acts as a reference. Not to be consciously considered, it comprises a reference allowing the shooter to use their natural instincts to make the shot  In the tactical environment, where targets aren't moving across the visual field as quickly, sights do have a role. For many, a fiber-optic front sight is the preferred sighting reference in conjunction with a rear leaf. In this instance, the shotgun is used more like a rifle, allowing intentionally aimed shots. Some even equip their shotguns with open or aperture sights akin to a rifle.  Many shotgun bead sights are designed for a "figure 8" configuration, where a proper sight picture uses a bead mounted at the midpoint of the barrel in conjunction with a front bead mounted toward the muzzle. Many shotgun manufacturers, such as Browning, calibrate these sighting systems to produce a shotgun pattern that is "dead-on" when the front bead is stacked just above the mid-bead, producing the figure-8 sight picture.

Adjustment.

Fixed sights are sights that are not adjustable. For instance, on many revolvers, the rear sight consists of a fixed sight that is a groove milled into the top of the gun's receiver. Adjustable sights are designed to be adjustable for different ranges, for the effect of wind, or to compensate for varying cartridge bullet weights or propellant loadings, which alter the round's velocity and external ballistics and thus its trajectory and point of impact. Sight adjustments are orthogonal, so the windage can be adjusted without impacting the elevation, and vice versa. If the firearm is held canted instead of level when fired, the adjustments are no longer orthogonal, so it is essential to keep the firearm level for best accuracy.  The downside to adjustable sights is the inherent fragility of the moving parts. A fixed sight is a solid piece of metal, usually steel, and if firmly attached to the gun, little is going to be able to damage it beyond usefulness. Adjustable sights, on the other hand, are bulkier, and have parts that must move relative to the gun. Solid impact on an adjustable sight will usually knock it out of adjustment, if not knock it right off the gun. Because of this, guns for self defense or military use either have fixed sights, or sights with "wings" on the sides for protection (such as those on the M4 carbine).  Iron sights used for hunting guns tend to be a compromise. They will be adjustable, but only with tools—generally either a small screwdriver or an allen wrench. They will be compact and heavily built, and designed to lock securely into position. Target sights, on the other hand, are much bulkier and easier to adjust. They generally have large knobs to control horizontal and vertical movement without tools, and often they are designed to be quickly and easily detachable from the gun so they can be stored separately in their own protective case.  The most common is a rear sight that adjusts in both directions, though military rifles often have a "tangent sight" in the rear, which a slider on the rear sight has pre-calibrated elevation adjustments for different ranges. With tangent sights, the rear sight is often used to adjust the elevation, and the front the windage. The M16A2 later M16 series rifles have a dial adjustable range calibrated rear sight, and use an elevation adjustable front sight to "zero" the rifle at a given range. The rear sight is used for windage adjustment and to change the zero range.

Enhancements.

While iron sights are basically very simple, that simplicity also leads to a staggering variety of different implementations. In addition to the purely geometric considerations of the front blade and rear notch, there are some factors that need to be considered when choosing a set of iron sights for a particular purpose.

Glare reduction.

Glare, particularly from the front sight, can be a significant problem with iron sights. The glare from the front sight can increase the apparent brightness of the light bar on one side of the sight, causing windage errors in aiming, or lower the apparent height of the front sight, causing elevation errors in aiming. Since the direction of the ambient light is rarely constant for a shooter, the resulting changing glare can significantly affect the point of aim.  The most common solution to the problem of glare is a matte finish on the sights. Serrating or bead blasting the sight is a common solution for brightly finished sights, such as blued steel or stainless steel. Matte finishes such as parkerizing or matte black paint can also help. "Smoking" a sight by holding a match or cigarette lighter under the sight to deposit a fine layer of soot is a common technique used by many shooters, and in fact special soot producing cigarette type lighters are sold for use by competition shooters. Even a thin layer of mud or dirt applied to the sight will help kill the glare, as long as the coating is thin and consistent enough not to change the shape of the sights.  Many target sights are designed with vertical or even undercut front sight blades, which reduces the angles at which light will produce glare off the sight—the downside of these sights is that they tend to snag on clothing, branches, and other materials, so they are common only on target guns. Sight hoods reduce the chances of snagging an undercut sight and are common on some types of rifles, particularly lever action rifles, but they are prohibited in some shooting disciplines.

Contrast enhancements.

While target shooters generally prefer a matte black finish to their sights, to reduce the chance of glare and increase the contrast between the sights and the light bars, black sights don't offer good visibility with dark targets or in low light conditions, such as those often encountered in hunting, military, or self-defense situations. A variety of different contrast enhancements to the basic Patridge type sight and others have been developed to address this deficiency. The contrast enhancement of the front sight has to be somewhat larger compared to the contrast enhancement(s) used for the rear sight if all contrast enhancements should appear about equally large from the shooters perspective.

Iron sights are a system of shaped alignment markers (usually metal) used as a sighting device to assist in the aiming of a device such as a firearm, crossbow, or telescope, and exclude the use of optics as in reflector (reflex) sights, holographic sights, and telescopic sights.

机械瞄具(simple sights),俗称「铁瞄」(iron sights),是一种通常由金属制的观测设备,可用于将物件定位在同一直线上,辅助物件对准特定目标,可应用于枪械、十字弓、或望远镜。但应用光学原理的照准器(透镜式或反射式皆然)则不在此定义范围。


Description.

The appearance of the megamouth is distinctive, but little else is known about it. It has a brownish-black colour on top, is white underneath, and has an asymmetrical tail with a long upper lobe, similar to that of the thresher shark. The interior of its gill slits are lined with finger-like gill rakers that capture its food. A relatively poor swimmer, the megamouth has a soft, flabby body and lacks caudal keels. The megamouth is considerably less active than the other filter-feeding sharks, the basking shark and the whale shark. The megamouth has a stout body and a long, wide bulbous head.  Megamouths are large sharks, able to grow to in length. Males mature by and females by. Weights of up to have been reported.  As their name implies, megamouths have a large mouth with small teeth, and a broad, rounded snout, causing observers to occasionally mistake megamouth for a young orca. The protruding inside of the upper lip is a brilliant silvery-white, which is very visible when the mouth is open. This lip was initially thought to be possibly embedded by luminous photophores when the first shark were examined in the early 1980s, which may act as a lure for plankton, while the team examining the second shark in the mid-1980s instead proposed that the lower lip might glow with the white band used as a reflector of sorts, but neither theory has been proven. This white band is present in both sexes and could be either a feeding mechanism or possibly be used as a means of identifying other individuals of megamouth sharks. Their mouths can reach up to wide. Megamouth sharks have up to 50 rows of teeth in their upper-jaw and up to 75 rows of teeth in their lower-jaw.

Behavior.

In 1990, a 4.9-m (16-foot) male megamouth shark was caught near the surface off Dana Point, California. This individual was eventually released with a small radio tag attached to its soft body. The tag relayed depth and time information over a two-day period. During the day, the shark swam at a depth around, but as the sun set, it would ascend and spend the night at depths between. Both day and night, its progress was very slow, around. This pattern of vertical migration is seen in many marine animals as they track the movement of plankton in the water column. The shark captured in March 2009 was reportedly netted at a depth of.

Reproduction.

Reproduction is ovoviviparous, meaning that the young sharks develop in eggs that remain within the mother's body until they hatch. Tissue samples were obtained from twenty-seven megamouths caught in a two-year period off the Hualien coast (eastern Taiwan), and two caught in Baja California, Mexico, and samples taken from GenBank in order to perform a population genetic analyses of the megamouth shark; the results indicated no genetic diversity between populations found in different geographical locations, which indicates the species forms a single, highly migratory, interbreeding population.

Discovery.

The first megamouth shark was captured on November 15, 1976, about 25 miles off the coast of Kāneohe, Hawaii, when it became entangled in the sea anchor of United States Navy ship "AFB-14". The species was identified as being of a new genus within the planktivorous shark species. Examination of the 4.5-m (14.7-ft), 750-kg (1,650-lb) specimen by Leighton Taylor showed it to be an entirely unknown type of shark, making it – along with the coelacanth – one of the more sensational discoveries in 20th-century ichthyology. The pectoral fin of the megamouth shark was studied, along with the skeletal and muscular system of the megamouth shark to show its phylogenetic relationship to the other two sharks.

Known specimens.

, only 99 megamouth specimens had been caught or sighted. They have been found in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan have each yielded at least 10 specimens, the most of any single area, amounting to more than half the worldwide total. Specimens have also been sighted in or come out of the waters near Hawaii, California, Mexico, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, Senegal, South Africa, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, and possibly Vietnam.  On March 30, 2009, off Burias Island in the Philippines, an 880- to 1,100-pound (400- to 500-kg) megamouth shark died while struggling in a fisherman's net and was subsequently taken to nearby Donsol in Sorsogon province, where it was examined by scientists, before being butchered and sold.  On June 12, 2011, a 3-m (10-ft) dead juvenile male was found by fishermen near the western Baja California Peninsula coast, in Sebastián Vizcaíno Bay. It was picked up by the same fishing vessel that in 2006 captured another megamouth specimen in Sebastián Vizcaíno Bay, which has led Mexican scientists to believe that the megamouth could be a seasonal visitor to the Baja California Peninsula. The new specimen was taken to Ensenada, where it was photographed and sliced for Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Mexican researchers to study the structure of its muscles and gills.  On May 7, 2014, a, female shark was captured at a depth of off the coast of Shizuoka, Japan. The body was dissected in front of the public, by staff at the Marine Science Museum in Shizuoka City, Japan.  On June 30, 2014, a female shark was captured in the shallow waters of Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines. Samples were sent to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in northern Mindanao (BFAR-10) and the outer skin, mounted along with the jaw, is on display at the D' Bone Collector Museum in Davao.  On January 28, 2015, a deceased megamouth shark was found by residents of Barangay Marigondon, in Pioduran town, Albay, Philippines. It is now on display at the Albay Parks and Wildlife, opened to the public since March 3, 2015, which coincided with Albay's celebration of the World Wildlife Day. The megamouth shark was preserved through taxidermy, and is now considered one of the more precious collections of Albay, a leading province in environment protection.  On April 14, 2016, a deceased megamouth shark was caught in a fisherman's net in Japan's Mie Prefecture, around three miles off Owase Port. The shark weighed an estimated. In August 2016 the shark was dissected before an audience of students and academics. The event was organized by Osaka Aquarium in Osaka, Japan.  On May 1, 2017, a nearly deceased megamouth shark washed up at Barangay Baluarte in the Misamis Oriental, a region in the Northern Mindanao of the Philippines. The estimated shark was buried to prevent locals from consuming the fish, as authorities were unsure of the cause of death.  On May 22, 2017, a live megamouth shark was found in a fishing net off Sunosaki lighthouse in Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. The estimated to female was filmed by an Asahi Shimbun photographer and examined by a TV celebrity marine biologist who calls himself Sakana-kun, or Fish Kid. The shark died the following day.  As of July 2017, the preserved and partially dissected head of a megamouth shark was on display at Osaka Aquarium in Osaka, Japan.  On July 25, 2017, a megamouth shark was recorded on video at Gili Lawa Laut near Komodo island, Indonesia, as it swam slowly past divers Penny Bielich and Heikki Innanen. The shark appeared to have at least one remora attached.  On February 11, 2018, a juvenile male measuring 4.34 meters in length was accidentally entangled in a fishing net off the coast of Negros Oriental in the Philippines. The body of the deceased shark was towed back and buried at Barangay Villareal later that afternoon. It was exhumed the following day so scientists could conduct a necropsy and get tissue samples for research.

The megamouth shark ("Megachasma pelagios") is a species of deepwater shark. It is rarely seen by humans and is the smallest of the three extant filter-feeding sharks alongside the whale shark and basking shark. Since its discovery in 1976, few megamouth sharks have been seen, with fewer than 100 specimens being observed or caught. Like the other two planktivorous sharks, it swims with its enormous mouth wide open, filtering water for plankton and jellyfish. It is distinctive for its large head with rubbery lips. It is so unlike any other type of shark that it is usually considered to be the sole extant species in the distinct family Megachasmidae, though suggestion has been made that it may belong in the family Cetorhinidae, of which the basking shark is currently the sole extant member. Researchers have predicted the feeding patterns of megamouth sharks in relation to the other two planktivorous sharks; the three plankivourous sharks have ram feeding in common, as it evolved from ram feeding swimming-type ancestors that developed their filtering mechanism to capture small prey like plankton. In addition to the living "M. pelagios", however, two extinct megamouth species – the Priabonian "M. alisonae" and the Oligocene–Miocene "M. applegatei" – have also recently been proposed on the basis of fossilized tooth remains. An early ancestor of the recent species "Megachasma pelagios" was reported from the early Miocene (Burdigalian) of Belgium. However, the Cretaceous-aged "M. comanchensis" has been recently reclassified as an odontaspid shark in the genus "Pseudomegachasma", and is in fact unrelated to the megamouth shark despite similar teeth morphology.

巨口鲨(学名:'),又名巨口鲛、大口鲨,是巨口鲨科巨口鲨属下的唯一现存种,目前全世界发现(捕获或目击)数量不足100只(自1976年第一次目击至2012年间仅55例),相当罕见。第一只巨口鲨是在1976年于夏威夷外海发现的。巨口鲨分布在世界各地,栖息深度约5至1000米之间,以深海居多,故很少被发现。


Early life and World War I.

Fedor von Bock was born into an old Prussian military family in Cüstrin (today Kostrzyn in Poland), a fortress city on the banks of the Oder River in the Province of Brandenburg.  His father, Moritz Albert Karl von Bock, had commanded a division in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. His mother, Olga Helene Franziska von Falkenhayn, was the sister of Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of the German General Staff during the First World War. At the age of eight, Bock went to study at a military academy in Berlin. The education emphasized Prussian militarism, and he quickly became adept in academic subjects such as modern languages, mathematics, and history. He spoke fluent French, and some English and Russian. At an early age, and largely due to his father, Bock developed an unquestioning loyalty to the state and dedication to the military profession.  While not a brilliant theoretician, Bock was a highly determined officer. As one of the highest-ranking officers in the "Reichswehr", he often addressed graduating cadets at his alma mater, which closed in 1920. His theme was always that the greatest glory that could come to a German soldier was to die for the Fatherland. He quickly earned the nickname "Holy Fire of Küstrin".  In 1905, Bock married Mally von Reichenbach (1887–1910), a young Prussian noblewoman. They had a daughter. In 1908, Bock entered the War Academy in Berlin, and after a year's study he joined the ranks of the General Staff. He soon joined the Army League ("Deutscher Wehrverein") and came to know Walther von Brauchitsch, Franz Halder, and Gerd von Rundstedt. By the time World War I began in 1914, Bock was a captain; he served as a battalion commander in January and February 1916. He was decorated with "Pour le Mérite", German Empire's highest military decoration.

Inter-war period.

Bock stayed on as an officer of the post-war "Reichswehr", and rose through the ranks. In the 1920s, Bock was together with Kurt von Schleicher, Eugen Ott, and Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord a member of a secret group known as "Sondergruppe R", selected by and responsible to Hans von Seeckt, who were in charge of helping Germany evade the Part V of the Treaty of Versailles, which had disarmed Germany.  The officers of "Sondergruppe R" formed the liaison with Major Bruno Ernst Buchrucker, who led the so-called "Arbeits-Kommandos" (Work Commandos), which was officially a labor group intended to assist with civilian projects, but were in reality thinly disguised soldiers that allowed Germany to exceed the limits on troop strength set by Versailles. Buchrucker's so-called "Black "Reichswehr"" became infamous for its practice of murdering all those Germans who were suspected of working as informers for the Allied Control Commission, which was responsible for ensuring that Germany was in compliance with Part V.  The killings perpetrated by the "Black "Reichswehr"" were justified under the so-called "Femegerichte" (secret court) system. These killings were ordered by the officers from "Sondergruppe R". Regarding the "Femegerichte" murders, Carl von Ossietzky wrote: "Lieutenant Schulz (charged with the murder of informers against the "Black "Reichswehr"") did nothing but carry out the orders given him, and that certainly Colonel von Bock, and probably Colonel von Schleicher and General Seeckt, should be sitting in the dock beside him".  Several times Bock perjured himself in court when he denied that the "Reichswehr" had had anything to do with the "Black "Reichswehr"" or the murders they had committed.  On 27 September 1923, Buchrucker ordered 4,500 men of the Black "Reichswehr" to assemble outside of Berlin as the first preparatory step toward a coup. Bock, who was Buchrucker's contact with the "Reichswehr", was enraged, and in a stormy meeting berated Buchrucker for mobilizing the Black "Reichswehr" without orders.  Bock stated the "Reichswehr" wanted no part in Buchrucker's coup and that "If Seeckt knew you were here, he would screw his monocle into his eye and say "Go for him!"". Despite Bock's orders to demobilize at once, Buchrucker went ahead with his coup on 30 September 1923, which ended in total failure.  In 1935, Adolf Hitler appointed Bock as commander of the Third Army Group. Bock was one of the officers not removed from his position when Hitler reorganized the armed forces during the phase of German rearmament before the outbreak of the Second World War. He remained a monarchist, and was a frequent visitor to the former "Kaiser"'s estate. Hitler reportedly said of him, "Nobody in the world but Bock can teach soldiers to die." In 1936 Bock married Wilhelmine, née von Boddien (1893–1945).  Bock commanded the invasion of Vienna in March 1938 for the Anschluss and then the Invasion of Czechoslovakia.

World War II.

Invasion of Poland.

By 25 August 1939, Bock was in command of Army Group North in preparation for the invasion and conquest of Poland. The objective of Army Group North was to destroy the Polish forces north of the Vistula. Army Group North was composed of General Georg von Küchler's 3rd Army, and General Günther von Kluge's 4th Army. These struck southward from East Prussia and eastward across the base of the Polish Corridor, respectively.  On 10 September Bock ordered the forces under his command to burn Polish villages located behind the front line to the ground if they were fired upon from the settlement and "if it proves impossible to identify the house from which the shots came". By the end of the military occupation of the country on 26 October 1939 531 towns and villages had been destroyed across Poland. In five weeks, Poland was overrun by German and Soviet forces.

Invasion of France.

Shortly after the conquest of Poland, on 12 October 1939 Bock was given command of Army Group B, with 291⁄2 divisions, including three armoured divisions. These were tasked with advancing through the Low Countries and luring the northern units of the Allied armies into a pocket. Army Group B consisted of the 18th and 6th Armies. While his units were overrunning the Netherlands, in May 1940, Bock attempted to call on the exiled former "Kaiser"—Wilhelm II—at Doorn, but Bock was unable to gain admittance, the German troops guarding the residence having been instructed to prevent such visits.  Bock participated in the Armistice with France in late June 1940.  On 19 July 1940, Bock was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony. At the end of August, Army High Command transferred Army Group B to East Prussia; this included Kluge's 4th Army. On 11 September, Bock relinquished command of his occupation area in France to Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb.

Invasion of the Soviet Union.

On 2 February, Bock met with Hitler and questioned whether the Russians could be forced to make peace even if the Red Army was brought to battle and defeated. Hitler airily assured Bock that Germany's resources were more than sufficient and that he was determined to fight. In preparation for Operation Barbarossa, on 1 April 1941 Army Group B was re-designated as Army Group Center. Deployed in Poland, Army Group Center was one of the three army formations which were to lead the invasion of the Soviet Union. It included the 4th and 9th Armies, the 3rd and 2nd Panzer Armies and "Luftflotte" 2. On the left flank of Bock's Army Group Center was Army Group North, commanded by Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb; on the right flank was Army Group South, commanded by Gerd von Rundstedt.  The main objective of Army Group Center was to follow the route north of the Pripyat Marshes to Moscow. Following the border battles, the task of Army Group Center was to drive towards the cities of Minsk and Smolensk, and destroy the Soviet armies stationed there in encirclement battles.  At 03:15 on 22 June 1941, the first shots of Operation Barbarossa were fired; Germany invaded the Soviet Union with a timed declaration of war.  Elements of Heinz Guderian's force had crossed the Bug River and were bypassing the city of Brest-Litovsk. Hermann Hoth's tanks were heading for Grodno on the Nieman River to seize the important river crossings. Several reconnaissance units from the 4th and 9th Armies had already crossed the Bug and Desna Rivers.  At 07:00, Bock flew from Posen to an advance airfield near the headquarters of XIII Infantry Corps. There, Major General Erich Jaschke gave Bock a summary of the progress of the invasion. Following this meeting, Bock visited Guderian's forward command post at Bokhaly. Bock then visited Joachim Lemelsen, who gave a report from the front. The roads on the Soviet side of the Bug River were already becoming too soft to support the weight of tanks. Despite this, the first day of the invasion had been spectacularly successful. Soviet resistance was reported as being light and complete surprise was achieved. All along the front rapid progress was being made.  On the second day of Barbarossa, Bock crossed the Bug River escorted by Major General Gustav Schmidt. Later that day Bock was presented with reports that Soviet resistance was stiffening all along the front, especially on Guderian's southern flank. Meanwhile, Hoth's forces were advancing with much more ease through the Baltic states and Belarus. The first two days of Army Group Center's advance proved to be highly successful.  Hoth's army advanced so quickly that Bock immediately contacted Walter von Brauchitsch, requesting the bypassing of Minsk in favor of attacking toward Vitebsk so that a drive could be made for Moscow. Initially, the change in plan was accepted but it was soon overruled by Hitler, who favored the encirclement and destruction of the large Soviet armies near Minsk. Bock wrote in his diary:  Differences between Bock's strategic intent and the intent of High Command repeatedly surfaced. Bock continued to favor a direct drive toward Moscow, bypassing Soviet armies and leaving them to be destroyed by infantry, which advanced on foot well behind tank columns. Bock argued that if encirclement were truly necessary then instead of diverting his tanks north and south to encircle and destroy smaller Soviet armies, a larger encirclement should be made eastward toward the Dvina-Dnieper River basins.  Hitler decided against this plan, and insisted that the pockets containing Soviet armies must be destroyed before advancing deeper into Russia. Bock, enraged by this decision, was quoted as saying: "We are permitting our greatest chance of success to escape us by this restriction placed on our armor!"  He hesitantly gave the order to abandon the drive toward Vitebsk and assist in the destruction of the pockets. On 25 June, Bock moved his headquarters from Posen to Kobryn, a town about northeast of Brest-Litovsk. On 30 June, the 4th and 9th Armies met each other near Slonim, trapping thousands of Soviet soldiers. However, many Soviet soldiers managed to escape eastward. Bock soon gave the order to disengage from the encirclement and prepare for a full-scale drive to the east. This order once again caused a confrontation between Bock and Brauchitsch.  On 3 July, Bock's forces were once again advancing eastward, with Guderian's tanks crossing the Berezina and Hoth's tanks crossing the Duna. This day marked the furthest distance covered by Bock's troops in a single day, with over traveled. Four days later, Guderian's tanks crossed the Dnieper, the last great obstacle before Smolensk. However, Guderian was soon ordered by Günther von Kluge to withdraw back across the river. Bock soon reversed this order, and Guderian was allowed to re-cross the river. Bock protested Kluge's actions to High Command, to no avail. On 11 July, Bock moved his headquarters again to Borisov, a Soviet town near the Berezina River.

March on Moscow.

On 9 September, Army High Command instructed Bock to prepare an operational order for the assault on Moscow. Operation Typhoon was the code-name given to this new attack, which was to begin no later than 30 September. Bock supervised the planning and preparation of the operation, and a few days later it was approved by the High Command.  As part of the preparation for Operation Typhoon, Army Group Center would be reinforced and replenished with men and vehicles; it would be composed of three infantry armies (the 2nd, 4th, and 9th) and three tank armies (2nd, 3rd, and 4th "Panzer"s). Colonel General Erich Hoepner would command the 4th "Panzer" Army, while the former two were outgrowths of Hoth's and Guderian's original "Panzer" Groups. The replenishment of Army Group Center for Operation Typhoon caused it to increase greatly in size: with almost 1.5 million soldiers, it was now larger than it was at the outset of Operation Barbarossa. Bock spent most of the remainder of September on inspection tours of his reinforced Army Group Center. On one occasion, Bock—along with Albert Kesselring—flew over Moscow.  On 29 September, Bock held a conference with his senior commanders Strauss, Hoth, Kluge, Weichs, Hoepner, Guderian, and Kesselring. During the meeting the main operational plan was reviewed, with Bock again stressing that Moscow must be taken by 7 November, before the onset of winter, and to coincide with the anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The following day, Operation Typhoon began with attacks from Guderian's and Hoth's armored forces. Several days later, the infantry armies began to move toward Moscow. With less than 150 km between the most advanced troops and Moscow, Bock estimated that his troops would enter the city in three to four weeks. Almost immediately, Bock's forces encountered stiff Soviet resistance on the road to Moscow.  The 2nd "Panzer" Army—along with the XLVIII "Panzer" Corps—attacked important rail junctions near Oryol (Orel) and Bryansk. Hoepner's 4th "Panzer" Army soon crossed the Desna River and gained access to deep Russian territory. Meanwhile, Hoth's 3rd "Panzer" Army struck toward Rzhev on the Volga River.  On 3 October, Guderian's forces captured Orel and subsequently gained access to a paved highway which led to Moscow, some away. Meanwhile, elements of the 2nd "Panzer" Army reported that they had bypassed Bryansk and were heading toward Karachev. Bock ordered Guderian to press on toward Tula, but within hours this order had been reversed by High Command. The reversal of the order called for Guderian to attack Bryansk where—along with Vyazma—two massive encirclements of Soviet forces were occurring. Bock argued that the area between Orel and Tula remained relatively free of Soviet forces and that Tula could be captured within hours. Ultimately, Bock agreed to divert Guderian's tanks toward Bryansk.  Cold rain soon began to fall over the northern sectors of Army Group Center's front, and the roads soon turned into quagmires as part of the Rasputitsa. Virtually the entire front became stuck; the only vehicles capable of negotiating the mud were tanks and other tracked vehicles. However, these moved at a snail's pace (sometimes less than per day), and fuel consumption soared. This further aggravated the problem of already poor supply lines.  Slight improvements in the weather soon made it possible for Bock's forces to continue to seal the pockets around Bryansk and Vyazma. The dual encirclements of Soviet forces around Vyazma and Bryansk yielded some of the largest Soviet casualties since the beginning of Operation Barbarossa: some 650,000 prisoners were taken during these two encirclements, after which the Soviet armies facing Bock's Army Group Center no longer had the advantage of superior numbers. Bock was one of the few German officers to protest the systematic maltreatment of Soviet prisoners of war, but took few steps to improve the conditions of those being held in the areas under his command.  The weather soon deteriorated again, with the roads once more turning into impassable, muddy quagmires. Since 30 September, Bock had lost some 35,000 men, 250 tanks and artillery pieces, and several hundred other vehicles, many of which were mired in the mud. Fuel and ammunition supplies became dangerously low. Despite these problems, the advance toward Moscow continued as Hitler became increasingly impatient. When advance units of the 4th "Panzer" Army reached Kaluga and Maloyaroslavets, German forces were within of Moscow. Guderian's advance in the south was much slower. An attempt by his forces to capture Tula had failed, with considerable losses of men and tanks. However, other units captured Stalinogorsk and Venev, indicating the possibility of bypassing Tula.  As Bock's forces smashed through the Red Army defense lines at Mozhaisk in mid-October, panic struck in the capital. Hundreds of thousands of civilians began to evacuate the city while others were forced into emergency volunteer units. Martial law was instituted as looting and pillaging of deserted stores increased. Marshal Semyon Timoshenko was relieved of command in favor of Georgy Zhukov, who had been organizing the defense of Leningrad. The main bulk of the Soviet government was evacuated to Kuibyshev, southeast of Moscow; however, Stalin remained in the capital after being reassured by Zhukov that the capital would not fall.  The further Bock's forces advanced, the stiffer Soviet resistance became. The paved roads leading to Moscow became craters under constant Russian artillery fire, rendering them impassable. This forced the German troops into the mud and Army Group Center soon became stuck once again. The goal of capturing Moscow by mid-October could no longer be achieved. However, the sheer weight of the German advance could not be fully stopped, and on 21 October units of the 9th Army captured Kalinin.  As November arrived the mud soon turned into ice as temperatures dropped to −28 °C (−20 °F). While the ground hardened sufficiently enough to support vehicles, the cold weather added to the miseries of the German soldiers as many had not received winter clothing. Frostbite soon took its toll; many soldiers were severely affected and had to be evacuated.  On 20 November, Bock moved his field headquarters to an advanced forward position near the front lines. There he visited an artillery command post, where he could see the buildings of Moscow through his field glasses. Several days later, German forces crossed the Moscow-Volga Canal and reached Khimki but soon fell back due to Soviet resistance. On 29 November, elements of the 4th "Panzer" Army reached the western suburbs of Moscow. On 4 December, units of the 2nd Army reached Kuntsevo, a western suburb of Moscow. Several units of Guderian's army bypassed Kolomna and reached the Moscow River. Meanwhile, the 3rd "Panzer" Army once again fought into Khimki. These were the last advances made by Army Group Center under Bock's command.  On 6 December, with the temperature at −45 °C (−50 °F), fresh Russian troops commanded by Zhukov launched a huge counterattack. All along the front near Moscow German troops retreated, destroying whatever equipment they could not salvage. Several days later, High Command ordered a halt to all offensive operations. Bock wrote in his diary:  By 13 December, German forces had retreated more than from the capital. On 18 December, Bock was relieved of his command of Army Group Center. The official pretext of this decision was health problems. However, this was just one case out of some 40 high-ranking officers being relieved of their command following the failure to capture Moscow.

1942 Second Battle of Kharkov and Summer Offensive, Eastern Front.

He was reassigned to lead Army Group South on 20 January 1942, after the death of "Generalfeldmarshall" Walter von Reichenau from a stroke. Thus, in May 1942, he commanded the defending forces that delivered the devastating defeat to the Soviet winter offensive and severely depleted Soviet tank strength in the Second Battle of Kharkov. On 28 June 1942, Bock's offensive split the Russian front into fragments on either side of Kursk. Three armies (Weich's 2nd Army, Hoth's 4th Panzer, and Paulus' 6th Army)—along with 11 "panzer" divisions—fanned out toward Voronezh and the Don River. Paulus' armoured divisions reached the Don on either side of Voronezh on 5 July. The Soviet High Command created a Voronezh Front under Nikolai Vatutin, who reported directly to Moscow. Bock wanted to eliminate Vatutin's forces before extending his own flank too deeply into the void created by the strength and speed of the German offensive. Hitler was not pleased with Bock's plan to delay the push toward Stalingrad. On 7 July, Hitler split Army Group South into Army Groups A and B. Army Group A was given to Field Marshal Wilhelm List to command. On 13 July, Hitler relieved Bock as commander of Army Group B, replacing him with Maximilian von Weichs. Bock never again occupied a senior command position.

1945, death.

Bock was injured on 3 May 1945, as his car was strafed by a British fighter plane killing his wife, stepdaughter, and a friend. Initially the only survivor of the attack, Bock died of his injuries the following day. He was buried in a cemetery in Lensahn.

Moritz Albrecht Franz Friedrich Fedor von Bock (3 December 1880 – 4 May 1945) was a German "Generalfeldmarschall" who served in the German Army during the Second World War. Bock served as the commander of Army Group North during the Invasion of Poland in 1939, commander of Army Group B during the Invasion of France in 1940, and later as the commander of Army Group Center during the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941; his final command was that of Army Group South in 1942.

莫里兹·阿尔布雷希特·弗里德里希·弗朗兹·费多尔·冯·波克(,1880年-12月3日-1945年-5月4日)是第二次世界大战期间的德国陆军元帅。波克曾在第一次世界大战中因表现优异而获得了功绩勋章,并在战后成为威玛防卫军限额的4,000名军官一员。在约20年的战间期间,波克的军事地位逐渐高升,1937年时他成为了德军中资历仅次于威尔纳·冯·弗里奇与格特·冯·伦德斯特的第3号人物。二战爆发后,波克先于1939年波兰战役中指挥北方集团军;1940年波克再于西线攻势中指挥B集团军;1941年波克再度担任中央集团军司令,为入侵苏联的作战:「巴巴罗萨行动」的主力。