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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Saint-Malo/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 25 June 2021 [1].

Battle of Saint-Malo edit

Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk) 04:35, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article covers a large but little-remembered battle between the US Army, with the support of French and British forces, and the German Army in France during August and September 1944. Allied forces assaulted the heavily defended resort town of Saint-Malo in the hope of capturing its port and eliminating the German garrison. This led to what the war correspondent Lee Miller described as "fortress warfare reminiscent of crusader times". The Allies eventually prevailed, but as the Germans had completely demolished the port little was achieved by the victory. The battle is perhaps most known today as the subject of the final chapters of the award winning novel All the Light We Cannot See.

I first became aware of this battle and its unusual nature after seeing an exhibition of Miller's photographs at the Imperial War Museums in London during 2015. I created this article last year after belatedly realising that we didn't have an article on it. It was assessed as a GA in March 2021 and passed a Military History Wikiproject A-class review in April. The article has since been further expanded any copy edited, and I am hopeful that the FA criteria are now met. To pre-empt a possible comment, the article relies heavily on the US Army official history as every other source I have been able to find is also obviously based on this work; there doesn't seem to have been any subsequent significant original research into the topic. Given this, I favoured going to the horse's mouth, rather than using works which re-hashed it. I have drawn on a large range of other works, including more recent works, to round out the story wherever possible. Thank you in advance for your time and comments. Nick-D (talk) 04:35, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild edit

Interesting. Last year I was looking to write an article or three on some of the US Army's pre-breakout battles in the Cotentin. But I really struggled to find much in the way of sources. (I ended up writing a couple of articles on the Battle of Crete.) So I look forward to seeing how you have addressed a similar problem. A full review to follow.

  • Cite 81: "p." → 'pp.'.

Gog the Mild (talk) 11:59, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • "The Allies sought to capture the town so that its port could be used to land supplies ... it was decided to capture rather than contain Saint-Malo in order to secure its port ..." This seems like a duplication.
    • I've tweaked the wording to clarify this. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht". This being the English Wikipedia, why are we communicating in a language very few readers will understand?
    Some German terms are better known to English readers in that language. OKW is one of them. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:23, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oberkommando der Wehrmacht is for better or worse the common name English-language name here, but I've added a translation. Nick-D (talk) 10:29, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and the other French ports with prewar fortifications as fortresses" Suggest deleting "the".
  • "gained a reputation for war crimes." Insert 'committing'.
  • "any partisans taken as prisoner". I am not sure about "as".
  • "after it managed to breakout from Normandy." It may just be me, but this looks a bit clunky. Perhaps "after it broke out from Normandy."?
  • "a collapse in the German positions." Optional: → 'a collapse of the German position'.
  • "led to a change in plans." Whose?
  • "On 3 August Bradley suggested to Patton". Suggested or ordered?
    • I've added material clarifying the changes in plans here. They're a bit hard to follow, as the senior American generals were changing their plans very frequently at this time due to the unexpected German collapse Patton and some of his divisional commanders pushing back against (and occasionally ignoring) orders they didn't agree with. Nick-D (talk) 10:29, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the resistance in Brittany was activated on 2 August". You explained earlier that it had always been active?
    • I've clarified this - they were directed to start a general attack, while avoiding "open warfare". It seems that the resistance exceeded their instructions though! Nick-D (talk) 10:42, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "of these areas and their transport infrastructure". Suggest "their" → 'of the'.
  • "This fort had originally been designed by the great engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban." Is it known when?
    • The eighteenth century - added. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Pointe de la Varde (fr)". Is there meant to be a link here?
    • Red linked. It's interesting that our coverage of French coastal fortifications isn't great. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "were mutually supporting". Perhaps a brief in line explanation of this concept.
    • Tweaked to make this clearer. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You have rephrased to avoid "mutually supporting", which you have done well and is fine, but you use it twice more in the article. You either need to rephrase both of these or actually define it somewhere.
Tweaked. Writing this article has illustrated that our coverage of siege/positional warfare isn't great, as it should be possible to link these terms. Nick-D (talk) 23:14, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I frequently think that we could do with a glossary of military terms, similar to the naval or cricket ones. A project for MilHist? Gog the Mild (talk) 10:28, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A key deficiency was that few artillery guns were emplaced." Does this mean that there were too few artillery guns, or that there were sufficient, but that they were not emplaced? And what does "emplaced" mean?
    • There weren't many guns - clarified. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You have removed this mention of "emplaced", but have used it twice more ...
Tweaked Nick-D (talk) 23:14, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "assault guns"> An explanation of what these might be for non-aficionados?
    • Linked. The concept was a bit tricky to understand by this period of the war, as the Germans were often using them as tanks. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If it were easy, they wouldn't need us.
  • "Despite Patton's intention to avoid siege operations, Middleton believed that the German force at Saint-Malo was too strong to be safely bypassed, as it could potentially attack the supply lines supporting the forces advancing into Brittany." I don't understand the first part of this. It reads to me as if both commanders wished to avoid sieges.
    • I think that the changes earlier in the article should make this clearer, and have tweaked the wording here as well. Middleton was much more cautious than Patton, and had a better feel for the area. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should the dates not be given in US format?
    They are in US military format. See WP:MILFORMAT. True story: visiting one of the antebellum homes in Louisiana, I signed the visitors' book using a military format date. My two US Army buddies signed it the same way. Then a bus load of American seniors arrived and complained bitterly about having to use the US military format - the idea of not doing so did not occur to them. (Later we got into trouble for locating the slave quarters out the back - not part of the tour apparently.) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:12, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, this is the format used in the US Army official history, for instance. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I knew that, I had a brain fart!
  • "around 10,000 Germans in the region". Suggest "region" → 'area'.
  • "an artillery battalion". It may be helpful to readers to give an idea of how many guns there were in one of those.
    Twelve. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:12, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""Added a note to this effect. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "suffered 31 killed and 106 wounded". It would be helpful if even a vague idea of the battalions strength on entering combat may have been.
    • I've added a note on the nominal size of US Army infantry battalions at this time. It's likely that the battalion would have been below strength though. Nick-D (talk) 10:50, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "increasingly used white phosphorus rounds." Why, and what are they?
    • Added 'incendiary', but I think that the link should make this pretty clear? Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      That's not quite right. White phosphorus munitions - "whiskey papa" we called it - are used to generate smoke, either for a smoke screen or marker for artillery or aircraft. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:02, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Good point - clarified. Nick-D (talk) 05:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is "napalm"?
  • "To transport the troops, 15 US Navy landing craft, vehicle, personnel were moved by truck"> Something has gone awry with the grammar here.
    • This was the awkward name of the things. Despite their central role in the Allied war effort, the grammar for amphibious craft was awful (eg, pretty much everything hinged off the awkwardly-named Landing Ship, Tanks). The abbreviations are often used, but I'm not sure if that's an improvement in this context. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is no requirement that we use the contemporary military nomenclature - imagine if I did so with my Medieval articles. How about "US Navy landing craft, vehicle, personnel" → 'US Navy infantry landing craft' or similar/
Tweaked to 'LCVP landing craft', which seems to be the common name and should be clearer (with the link). Nick-D (talk) 11:03, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent work. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:31, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Gog the Mild: Thank you for this review. I think that I may have addressed all the comments, but please let me know if I haven't. Nick-D (talk) 00:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • What qualifies Bardham to be described as an "historian"? And why is "To the last man" a reliable source? Gog the Mild (talk) 00:45, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • It was published by Frontline books, which is an imprint of Pen & Sword, a reputable publisher of military history works (I think they have a few other imprints). Googling him shows that he authored a couple of other works on related aspects of the war, including Hitler's U-Boat Fortresses which was published by one of the scholarly publisher Rowman & Littlefield's vast stable of imprints. It doesn't look like he was a qualified historian, but a couple of obits noted that he wrote about the war [2] [3]. Nick-D (talk) 01:00, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I am convinced. I have and have read the same volume and it is indescribably poor. As you only cite it twice and for non-controversial points I shall be Nelsonian.
Hmm, OK. I've been relying on the Google Books previews, which are pretty good for this battle. As you note, the two points I've used it as a citation for aren't controversial - Bradham simply states a conclusion about the nature of the German resistance that pretty much every other author describes (Blumenson for instance highlights all the instances the German commanders made histrionic statements and fought on in the face of obvious defeat, and almost every author notes that Aulock was nicknamed the 'mad colonel' for these behaviours. A range of sources also note how badly Aulock treated the civilian population during the battle and turned down opportunities to avoid the destruction of the town). Nick-D (talk) 23:14, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Even better after the changes in response to the various reviewers comments. A handful of come backs from me above. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:38, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for these further comments. Nick-D (talk) 23:14, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
However, the following week, the Allies refused to allow the evacuation of the civilian population from Le Havre, and over 2,000 of them were killed by air and naval bombardment. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:43, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, and as I understand it a lot died in the bombing of that town shortly after D-Day as well. Nick-D (talk) 05:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nick-D, just my last point about landing craft to address. I am going to support anyway, but I think that point could do with resolving. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:42, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry, I forgot that one - despite devising a solution while running errands today! Tweaked per the above, and thanks again for this review. Nick-D (talk) 11:03, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hawkeye7 edit

@Gog the Mild: Zawed would have been my first port of call for an article on Crete. As Nick pointed out, there hasn't been a lot of American interest in the campaigns in North West Europe, except for the Battle of the Bulge. However the Brits and Canadians have done a lot of work lately, and I have a pile of material on the campaign in southern France. Let me know if you're interested in working on some of them.

Oh yeah. I reviewed this article at A-Class and Support it here. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:50, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for this. Yes, there's lots of opportunities to develop articles on the campaign in North West Europe. Our coverage of the fighting in 1945 is especially bad. Nick-D (talk) 07:55, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nick-D, I have for a while been toying with writing an article on the Battle of La Haye-du-Puits. Might you be interested in a collaboration?
I would be willing to help you with it. Looks like we don't have an article in English, although there is one in French (fr:Bataille de La Haye-du-Puits) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:17, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hawkeye7, re Crete: possibly, but I have pushed two battles through to FA anyway. I seem to have run out of steam a bit on these. Zawed, you reviewed them both, would you be interested in a collaboration on the Battle of Prison Valley?
Gog the Mild (talk) 21:53, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Gog the Mild, would be good to work with you on a collaboration. I have a few print sources in relation to the NZers on Crete that will be useful. Zawed (talk) 10:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Ceoil edit

  • I expect to support this impressive account.
  • The Imperial War Museums hold a recording identified as an account of HMS Malaya bombarding Cézembre in its collection `- made by whom
  • The phrase "had been" appears 14 times, and is a bit vague. Eg "Extensive fortifications had been constructed in the Saint-Malo area"...in the lead up to the American invasion presumably, though earlier we are told that the town had been designed for defence over centuries.
  • Was confused by this: Accordingly, the Overlord plan specified that securing Brittany would be the main objective of Lieutenant General Omar Bradley's Twelfth United States Army Group after it managed to breakout from Normandy. This task was assigned to the Third Army
    • It was part of the army group - clarified. Nick-D (talk) 06:40, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • more later, still only scanning. Ceoil (talk) 00:23, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for these comments so far. Nick-D (talk) 06:40, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Did a number of [light] copyedits during initial readings, and the page has improved since. Support, nice work. Ceoil (talk) 22:03, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Sturmvogel_66 edit

Just some drive by comments on stuff that I noticed while doing the source review

  • Burt's book British Battleships 1919–1945 specifically states that Malaya bombarded the islands off St. Malo on 1 September. Lemme know if you want fuller bibliographic info.
    • Thanks, but I don't think that's necessary: in the note here I'm using some illustrations from the main works on the topic rather than noting what every source says. It seems most likely that the ship was HMS Malaya given the BBC record, though Warspite was also operating in the area at the time (she shelled Brest). The British official histories don't mention this action unfortunately, as they would be the best source here - I suspect that this is what has led to the confusion in the sources. Nick-D (talk) 11:13, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The German garrison names are misspelled. Should be Küstenverteidigungsgruppe Rance, etc.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is what the source uses. Thank you for these comments. Nick-D (talk) 11:13, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • An unforced error by the author. See [4] for examples.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:44, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • Checking Google books shows that terminology is used by German-language works - tweaked accordingly. Nick-D (talk) 01:15, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Source review edit

  • Cites consistently formatted.
  • Some British publications have United Kingdom as part of the location, others don't. Standardize these. Otherwise consistently formatted
    • My understanding is that the convention is that highly specific locations only need to be added for cities which aren't well-known publishing centres (e.g., no need to refer to 'New York City, United States' or 'London, United Kingdom' as everyone will know what's being referred to). The UK locations where I've included 'UK' are those which are a bit obscure - Barnsley, Abingdon-on-Thames, etc (ditto Annapolis, Maryland, etc). Oxford and London are well-known. Nick-D (talk) 11:08, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Randal needs an ISSN
  • Spotchecks on ISBNs and ISSNs proved out
  • Sources are highly reliable
  • Prose spotchecks not done--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comment (not to step on Sturm's toes here, but it occurred to me when I looked over the article) - are we concerned about the age of a few of the sources, most notably Blumenson, since the article relies on it heavily? The source obviously predates the public release of Ultra - have you looked into more recent publications to see whether Enigma decrypts played a role in the operation? I'd assume it was a factor in Allied planning, for instance. Parsecboy (talk) 13:03, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing on Ultra's role in this battle in Zaloga's recent work, and he usually comments on this form of intelligence in his works on World War II. The relevant volume of British intelligence in the second world war notes that intelligence on German naval operations from Saint-Malo before D-Day that was sourced from Ultra and that the Allies were tracking the 77th Infantry Division as it moved between Normandy and Saint-Malo, but doesn't cover this battle in any detail. This Masters thesis has a few interesting snippets, but as a masters thesis isn't a RS (though its author recently retired as a Lieutenant General!). The other recent works consulted don't mention Ultra. My understanding is that the value of Ultra at this time was mixed, as German Army units in France used landlines for communications wherever possible. The fact that the Americans greatly under-estimated the size of the garrison at Saint-Malo and blundered into a bigger battle than they expected indicates that Ultra wasn't much use to them in this battle. I've added some extra material to flesh the intelligence picture facing the Allies out. Nick-D (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Jim edit

Not my area at all, and it's been picked over by reviewers who know what they are doing, but an interesting and comprehensive read. A few comments to show I've read it, please ignore if I'm showing my ignorance of milhist guidelines. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:58, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Saint-Malo was once an island, but had been joined to the mainland by the time of World War II. — joined how? bridges or infill/reclamatin?
    • A causeway and a road - added. Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Kriegsmarine (German Navy). Luftwaffe (German air force) — why aren't these piped as eg German Navy rather than using both the English and German names?
    • The German names are the current common names for these armed forces in English language works. I would personally prefer to refer to them as 'German Navy' and 'German Air Force', but modern usage is against me. Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The German forces managed to block the Allies from breaking out into France for almost two months— given that they are already in France, this needs tweaking a bit
  • You convert US units to metric, eg 2 miles (3.2 km). Given that we are in France, which uses metric units, shouldn't the local unit come first?
    • I did this as the article is written in US English, and is focused on the activities of US military units. I think that this is in line with the guidance at MOS:UNIT ('In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United States, the primary units are US customary'). Thanks a lot for this review. Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nick-D I'm not totally convinced on the last point, since I think it clearly has even stronger ties to France, but as long as it's consistent, I can live with that, changed to support above Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:19, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks a lot Jim. I'd add that that the sources on this battle also tend to be US-centric and use US units, so this is consistent with that. Nick-D (talk) 22:33, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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