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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Saipan/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) 22 October 2024 [1].

Battle of Saipan

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Nominator(s): Wtfiv (talk) 18:21, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the Battle of Saipan in June 1944. Because it was underway at the same time as the Normandy landings in France, it is less well known. It was the first invasion of the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign. The invasion triggered the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which effectively destroyed the Japanese navy's airpower. The island's capture pierced the Japanese defense perimeter and provided the American forces with an island base that put the Japanese home islands in range of the B-29 bombers. The fall of the island led to the collapse of the Japanese cabinet with the resignation of Hideki Tōjō, the prime minister of Japan.

The article has passed an A-class review and the images have been reviewed by Hawkeye7. Wtfiv (talk) 18:21, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Suggest scaling up the maps
  • Updated three maps of campaign progress to upright =1.2
  • Some images are missing alt text
  • Alt text added to 27th infantry moving inland, troops moving through Garapan in flames

Matarisvan

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I was one of the reviewers at A class and found this article to be a comprehensive review of the battle. I can happily support for promotion to A class on the general text quality. On source formatting, I would suggest adding archive URLs for the National Park Service source in the Online sources section, and also for Trefalt 2018, the only two sources we don't have archive URLs for. I will be doing a source review tomorrow. Cheers Matarisvan (talk) 17:53, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Matarisvan,
I added the archive link for the National Park Service. I couldn't archive the convenience link for Trefalt as it is behind academia.edu's server, but the doi is available for readers, who have access to the journal. Wtfiv (talk) 21:42, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The source formatting review is a pass then. Here goes the source review:
  • All sources are from reliable publishers.
  • #3, #8, #21, #68, #81, #172, #267, #287: all ok.
  • #124: ok but only Shaw, Nalty and Turbladh 1989 has the required supporting text, I could not find any in Harmsen 2021. Perhaps you should remove the latter.
  • #153: For this text, "Less than a half hour after the start of the amphibious invasion", p. 63 would be the correct one, not p. 64. For the other use of this ref number, p. 64 is correct. You will have to separate the two.
Matarisvan (talk) 07:58, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For #124, The Harmsen citation and its associated convenience link were corrected to p. 62, which discusses the first night's assault; #153 was corrected to p. 63. Wtfiv (talk) 15:58, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The source review is a pass then. Also I'd really appreciate it if you could check out a PR I opened recently, linked here. Cheers Matarisvan (talk) 16:06, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hawkeye 7

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I reviewed this at A-class and looks good to me. But to prove I read it:

  • "Nagumo" is misspelt as "Nagamo"

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 08:37, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Hawkeye7! I fixed it. Wtfiv (talk) 14:48, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Hurricanehink

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I figured I should review it since I have an FAC open too.

  • "Organized resistance ended when at least 3,000 Japanese soldiers died in the final gyokusai attack" - eesh I had to look up what gyokusai was. I'm not sure what I expected, but I think a brief description here, either wave or swarming. I also noticed that gyokusai redirects to Banzai charge. Any reason for this particular wording here? I'm not familiar with the subject matter, just the first thing I've noticed.
  • " and left Japan vulnerable to strategic bombing" - you mention this in the third lead paragraph, but it's also in the first. I'm not sure if the material in the first paragraph should be moved to the third, since that all kind of lumps together the aftermath of the battle.
  • removed repeat of strategic bombing in lead, taking out mention of strategic bombing from the fourth paragraph, but left it in the first since it is important.
  • Is it worth mentioning the brief history of Saipan being taken by Japan/Germany/US as part of the background? The US was kind of taking the island back, and it never gave it up after the war. Or furthermore, there isn't even much of a background to the Pacific campaign, just starting the narrative in 1944. I see you mention more history under "geography", but that kind of feels like "background" to me.
  • Changed section name to "History and Geography". The US occupied Guam before the war, but not Saipan. The Saipan became a Japanese possession, part of the mandates, immediately after World War I.
  • I notice that two times you use "nmi", without ever using the term "nautical mile". I was only familiar with the abbreviation because tropical cyclone articles (which I usually focus on) often have their units listed in nautical miles/knots, which we always convert since the average reader probably doesn't know what they are. Considering you mostly use imperial with metric units in parenthesis, I don't think you need the nmi, unless you think otherwise.
  • " 81 and 91 inches" - convert to metric please. Ditto "seven miles"
  • nmi removed, rainfall has cm conversions, seven miles now has kilometers.
  • "The largest towns on the island–the administrative center of Garapan with its population of 10,000, Charan Kanoa, and Tanapag–were on the western coast of the island, which was where the best landing beaches for an invasion were. " clunky wording here
  • reworded, breaking it into two sentences.
  • "Nimitz assigned Admiral Raymond Spruance, " - I had to scroll up to remember who Nimitz was. Maybe remind the reader his significance, since it's the start of a section (Opposing forces). Kinda similarly when you say "the amphibious landings of Forager". I had to look up what Forager was again. Not a huge deal, but to a non-military expert, it might be helpful to have a few more reminders.
  • added that Nimitz was commander of the Pacific Fleet. Replaced "Forager" with "Mariana Islands"
  • Over 60,000 troops were assigned to the assault:[b] Approximately 22,000 were in each Marine division and 16,500 in the 27th Infantry Division. - I'm not sure the use of the colon after assault:
  • Colon deleted
  • "6 June 1944" - this stood out to me that your date format is European. Saipan is a US territory now, and most of the US uses Month and Day, not Day then Month. Is there a reason you chose this date format?
  • I wanted to keep the format consistent with this article's companion article, Battle of Tinian. Tinian was the next island invaded a month after Saipan. (It's about three miles from Saipan.) I kept the format of that article because it passed both the A-class review and is a featured article using the DD Month Year format.
  • "This made the defenses brittle." - is "brittle" the best word here? I'm not familiar with military terms here, and I'm not sure if "weak" is better, but maybe there's a better word out there than a word that makes me think of brittle candy.
  • "brittle" changed to "weak"
Battle
  • "On 11 June, over 200 F6F Hellcats from the Fast Carrier Task Force launched a surprise attack on Japanese airfields in Saipan and Tinian..." - we don't have an exact number?
  • "which began around 08:40" - timezone? Is this local time? Washington time? Coordinated Universal Time?
    Here I followed MOS:TIMEZONE which states that event times should be given in the time zone in which the event occurred.
    That's fair, but anytime I deal with anything time specific, it's helpful to clarify with a note. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:47, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hurricanehink, I assume that for the American sources, time would be based on the WWII version of Military time zone (Zulu time) Saipan's military time zone falls within K time (or Kilo time), GMT+10. But none of the sources clarify this. Wtfiv (talk) 19:31, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a reason "8000 men" doesn't have a comma for 8,000? Also, is this exact or about?
  • Added "around" before 8000. Followed MOS:DIGITS, which states that commas are optional for four digit numbers.(Added comma)
  • I see "pillbox" is linked in the pic farther down in the article than when it's mentioned for the first time in prose.
  • Linked first occurrence of pillbox in main text.
  • "He proposed to indefinitely postpone the 18 June invasion of Guam." - I'm guessing that happened? There's nothing else of this
  • Added footnote that the Invasion of Guam took place on 21 July.
  • "Intelligence had estimated that there were no more than 300 Japanese soldiers in the area" - do we know what intelligence? It might be better saying "Advanced reconnaissance" or "Spies" or however they estimated that, than starting with "Intelligence", which is odd to me as a civilian.
  • Replaced "Intelligence" with "Smith". This follow's Lacey's wording.
  • Why does the "American firepower" section appear under "25-30 June: Central Saipan, breakthrough"? I noticed that the Sherman tanks were already mentioned previously, just not in as much detail. I wonder if the "American firepower" should appear under "Opposing forces" under the American section? I think I see the logic having it where it is now: the American firepower allowed for this turning point. Right now parts of the section feels like it disrupts the narrative, considering what came before it. All of that said, the tanks with flamethrowers sounds fucking badass, which is partly why I think that needs to be highlighted better in the article than where it is. This section is what caught my eye:
  • "The Americans had other assets as well. Over 150 tanks–over 100 of which were M4 Sherman tanks–had been committed to the invasion.[204] The M4 Sherman tank was superior to the Japanese Type 97 tank.[205] It was primarily used to support infantry and was considered one of the most effective weapons for destroying enemy emplacements.[206] Flame throwers were extensively used. Smith had seen the need for motorized flamethrowers and had requested that the Army's Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) in Hawaii install them in M3 Stuart tanks. Seabees with the CWS had 24 tanks, nicknamed "Satans", converted to flamethrowing in time for the invasion. They were very effective for destroying pillboxes, cave defenses, buildings, canefields, and brush."
  • Moved the section on the tanks to "Opposing Forces". Kept the sections on artillery and portable flame-throwers in this section, as this is when they were actively deployed.
  • "But his army's cohesion was disintegrating. Some of the remaining forces moved north, others holed up in whatever caves they could find and put up sporadic, disorganized resistance." - I noticed a few times earlier where a sentence started with "But", which felt clunky. And then the second part felt like it was missing a word, or a semicolon. Maybe "while others holed up"?
  • Reworded sentences. Removed initial "But". Removed some of the other lead "But's" too.
  • "On 4 July, the 27th Infantry Division and 4th Marine Division headed northwest. The 27th division reached the east coast at Flores Point, south of Tanapag" - wait is the 27th the same for both sentences here? How did it go northwest and end up east? Going around the tip of the island, I'm guessing? If so, maybe clarify that?
  • That should have read "west coast at Flores Point". Fixed
  • "and inflicting 80% casualties" - the rest of the article used exact number of casualties, not percentages, so I suggest using an exact number if you can.
    Added "about 900 casualties". I left 80% as a clause to illustrate the magnitude of the loss.
  • "who survived the last banzai charge" - see my earlier comment about gyokusai or banzai, as long as it's consistent.
  • Changed to gyokusai.
  • "Eventually 1700" - why no comma?
  • Added comma. (MOS:DIGITS states that commas are optional for four digit numbers.)
  • " It was the Americans' most costly battle in the Pacific up to that time." - seems to have been deadly, not costly, unless I'm mistaken
  • Changed to "deadly"
  • What is "ordnance "?
  • replaced with "shells during the battle".
  • "Hirohito only accepted Saipan's eventual fall on 25 June when his advisors told him all was lost" - in 1944 or 1945? The last year mentioned was 1945, so I have to ask
  • added 1944

All in all an interesting read about a battle I knew nothing about! Well done all around. Most of my notes should be pretty easy to fix/address (I hope). Lemme know if you have any questions. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:53, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments, Hurricanehink. I've responded. Do these address the issues you pointed out? Wtfiv (talk) 18:30, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely, thanks so much for the quick responses! Happy to support now. Good work on this. I don't usually read military articles, but I found this fairly easy to follow. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:08, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Source formatting seems consistent. Are "free Press" and "Metro books" really lowercase? Is Samuel Eliot Morison a reliable source? Some of what it says raises questions. Is http://www.historytoday.com/ a high-quality reliable source? In terms of reliability, it seems like we are working with good sources ... but even with WP:NONENG the fact that English and US-affiliated sources are almost the entire source body raises some WP:UNDUE concerns. Are there really no Japanese sources on the battle? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:40, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Capitalization: "Free Press" and "Metro Books" have been fixed.
  • Morison as a source: "New Guinea and the Marianas, March 1944–August 1944." is part of the History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. It is not a perfect source, as that article points out. Unlike the United States Marines and the United States Army, the United States Navy never published an official history. Morison's is the closest it comes. The Navy stated that Morison's history was not its official history. His advantage however, is that the navy gave him access to its records, gave him an office office in the Navy Department under the Director of Naval Records and History while writing the book, and a staff of assistance. See the Naval Command and Heritage site for a review of Morison. Morison's strength is clearly one of the reference sources for later histories of the Pacific War, including Ian Toll's Pacific War Trilogy and Hornfischer. (see Hornfischer's review of Morison here.) In using Morison as a source, I did not use his analyses or assumptions of motivations. I used what he had access to, (e.g., ship number, troops, information about plans, and the like.)
  • Just to add here, Morison continues to be widely used by professional historians so is clearly a reliable source. He shouldn't be used in isolation as the books can be dated at times (and sometimes can be slightly eccentric), but that's not the case here. I've referenced Morrison in several FAs that passed with no concerns being raised over the source. The series remains the most detailed account of the US Navy in World War II. Nick-D (talk) 10:35, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Japanese sources: My contributions tend to aim to a close adherence WP:NONENG when possible, though I will provide foreign language sources with a quote and translation when they make a critical point (see Frederick the Great or Joan of Arc). One of the major problems in most writing about the island warfare in the Pacific is that almost all the Japanese witnesses died. Testimony from Japanese survivors interrogated by the military is included in the article. I did include English-language works from Japanese-speaking scholars studying the Pacific War. These include Tanaka, Irokawa, Kawamura, and Hiroyuki. The former three have author links with their sources. They mainly focus on how the battle impacted Japanese decision making at the grand strategic level.
  • Ironically, one of the major sources for the Japanese military perspective on the island-as cited in the English-language sources- was Takashi Hirakushi. Almost all contemporary histories still cite him as a source, but as a footnote in the article suggests, his first-person testimony may not be reliable. Much of his testimony was initially shared under the name of an officer who had actually died in the fighting, and his story changed over time (cf., Hoffman's version written in the 1950s and Toland's summary based his interviews with Hirakushi in World War II), and some statements are contradicted by interrogations of other survivors. Problems with the details can be found in footnote h in the article. The sources in the footnote provide more information. I've provided convenience links to the sources wherever possible so English-speaking readers can verify the information themselves.
Wtfiv (talk) 15:51, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • oops, forgot about the Hughes. Removed it and replaced with Atroth.
  • Also,with respect to Japanese sources: Trefalt is an English-speaking source, but her article gives a critical treatment of civilians in Saipan in her analysis of civilian survivor's diaries. Wtfiv (talk) 16:34, 27 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've replaced the Hughes from history today with the peer-reviewed article by him in the Journal of Military History. It's more in-depth and fully cited.
  • Interestingly, Hughes on pg 102 (with a footnote with specific references) also points out that the Japanese sources remain thin, though they would be useful. Very little of the Senshi Sōsho, the Japanese multivolume official history of the war has been translated, and it doesn't include the sections on Saipan Most personal memoirs by Japanese people who were at Saipan have not been translated either. Hughes mentions two untranslated memoirs about Saipan.
Wtfiv (talk) 23:13, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hughes also mentions Saburō Ienaga's work, which was translated into English, The Pacific War: World War II and the Japanese, 1931–45 (1968; New York: Pantheon, 1978). I had access to this book when writing the article. It gives an overview of a Japanese perspective, but Saipan is not discussed. The closest he comes is a passing mention of the Battle of the Philippine sea as part of the Japanese military being ground down by overwhelming American production. Wtfiv (talk) 23:18, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Jo-Jo, I am moderately up to speed with the Pacific Campaign, so I will reread the article with this in mind. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:25, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Gog, did you get a chance to do this yet? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for missing this Ian. There didn't seem to be any bias to me, nor any clearly relevant and unused sources. In brief, I am happy - in the light of my checks and Jo-Jo and Wtfiv's comments with the sourcing. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:16, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the late response, I missed this until now. When working on the article, I looked for relevant articles in journals without a military focus when researching the article in the academic search engines of had access to, including Google Scholar. They were few. I used Trefalt (2018) in The Journal of Pacific History analyses Japanese civilian's experience using Japanese diaries and memoirs, Plung (2021) in the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus discusses Saipan in the context of evacuation policies in Japan, Giangreco (2003) in the Pacific Historical Review discusses American casualties in terms of policy decisions in the war. The Tanaka (2023) chapter in the edited volume The Modern Japanese Nation and Empire c. 1868 to the Twenty-First Century described where Saipan fit into Japanese defense strategy at the governmental level. Though Astroth (2019), Mass Suicides on Saipan and Tinian, 1944: An Examination of the Civilian Deaths in Historical Context. is a book, not a journal, its is an in-depth about civilian casualties in a larger historical context. Wtfiv (talk) 18:18, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support by Nick-D

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I also reviewed this in its A-class review. I'd like to offer the following comments in regards to meeting the FA criteria:

  • The article appears to have been considerably expanded and copy edited since the ACR. It is clearly of FA standard - I can't find much to comment on, though I've made a few minor tweaks to tidy up the article.
  • The lead is excellent, and a model of how they should be structured.
  • As a very minor suggestion, I'd suggest replacing "took out" with something more formal, liked "destroyed" Nick-D (talk) 10:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
done! Thank you for the review Nick-D! Wtfiv (talk) 21:35, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

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Saipan's loss had a greater impact in Japan than all its previous defeats. Could be read as "all of its previous defeats put together" or "any of its previous defeats". Could we clarify in the text? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:10, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tagging @Wtfiv who may not have seen this note. Matarisvan (talk) 16:23, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Matarisvan, I did miss this! I've updated it to any of its previous defeats as per Ian Rose's suggestion. Wtfiv (talk) 20:57, 14 October 2024 (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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