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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bombing of Singapore (1944–1945)/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 SandyGeorgia 01:38, 22 January 2011 [1].

Bombing of Singapore (1944–1945) edit

Bombing of Singapore (1944–1945) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk) 06:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article on United States and British air raids on Singapore during 1944 and 1945 passed a Military History Wikiproject A class review in September and has since been improved further. There is only a limited literature on these raids (which largely focuses on the experiences of the US bomber units) and Toh Boon Kwan's journal article states that no-one has ever written a comprehensive account of them and that the Japanese destroyed many of their records of Singapore in this period at the end of the war. As a result, I think that this article provides as detailed an account of the raids as is possible (particularly given the need to not unduly emphasise the experiences of American air crew) and may now meet the FA criteria. Nick-D (talk) 06:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources comments: All sources look good, citation formats correct, verification spotchecls OK. Brianboulton (talk) 19:53, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that Nick-D (talk) 22:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dab/EL check - no dabs or dead external links. --PresN 22:07, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Nick-D (talk) 07:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Explain or link "graving dock"
    • Done
  • "a 4,000 miles (6,400 km) round trip" - grammar
    • Done
  • MOS:TIME mandates the use of colons in times
    • Done
  • "Bombing was highly accurate, with the lead aircraft putting a bomb within 50 feet (15 m) of the dry dock's caisson gate and the third aircraft's bombs landed nearby" - phrasing
    • Done, I think
  • Measurements used as adjectives should be hyphenated, and should use "foot" instead of "feet" (ex. "460-foot")
    • Done
  • "the Pangkalanbrandan refinery" or "Pangkalanbrandan refinery"? Is "King's Dock" the same as "King George VI Graving Dock"?
    • 'Pangkalanbrandan' and they were different - I've fixed the spelling and clarified the location of the King's Dock
  • South East or South-East Asia?
    • Wikipedia's article used Southeast Asia so I've changed all mentions in the text to this for internal consistency.
  • What is the "West Wall area"? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The name of a district of the Naval base near which its main offices were located - I've expanded this a bit, but couldn't find much further detail. Thanks a lot for your comments Nick-D (talk) 23:27, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – Just some quickies from an otherwise fine-looking article.

  • Background: The bracketing en dashes toward the end of this section should't be unspaced, at least not according to the MoS. You could unspace them, or change them to larger em dashes; either method is fine.
    • Spaces added
  • References are listed out of order in a few places, like this: [19][10][20]. This is not a deal-breaker, but it's usually better to keep them in numerical order. If they are in the order of the content, that might be a case where leaving them as is would be okay.
    • Fixed - I agree that it looks much tidier to keep these in order
  • There are also a few areas where dates are given with apostrophes, like in "On the night of 25/26 January". The MoS recommends against slashes whenever possible. To give one possible alternative, I've seen en dashes used a few times in this situation.
    • I've used this approach in other FAs and A class articles without any problems, and the example given at WP:MOS#Dates indicates that this is OK, so I'm a bit reluctant to change from this approach. Given that most of the raids involved long flights which ran across two days I think that its clearer to use the current approach to specify night attacks. Is this OK?
      • I'd agree with leaving the slash, as in "25/26 January" -- seems to be a common format in articles I've looked at. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:27, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • One of the references (the Keith Park London Gazette piece) is a link in PDF format. When you have a PDF form that could take a long time to load (if one doesn't have a high-speed connection and the file is long). it's nice to provide an indication in the citation that it is a PDF. If you're using the cite templates, the format= parameter works well for this. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 01:39, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support -- I supported in its MilHist A-Class Review and the article's only improved since then. Copyedited but generaly prose, structure, referencing, coverage, and supporting materials look fine -- well done. Couple of things:

  • Little intelligence on Singapore was available, and on 30 October a photo reconnaissance B-29 overflew Singapore for the first time and took good photos of the island -- This reads a bit oddly since it was a major Allied base before 1942 -- do we mean something like Little intelligence was available on current Japanese dispositions at Singapore, but on 30 October a photo-reconnaissance B-29 overflew the city—the first Allied aircraft to do so since 1942—and took good photos of the island?
    • Good point - I've changed it to 'little recent intelligence' (the source says that "Singapore had been virtually blacked out to Allied intelligence" so I can't be more spectific).
  • Few Japanese aircraft attacked the raiders, but two B-29s were lost -- This isn't that clear, do we mean that those few Japanese aircraft claimed the two B-29s lost, or that the bombers crashed for come other (unstated) reason? If the former, something along the lines of While few Japanese aircraft attacked the raiders, they succeeded in shooting down two of the B-29s would help. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:18, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Good point; the source implies that they crashed in accidents - I've clarified the wording. Thanks for your comments Ian. Nick-D (talk) 07:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FA Criterion 3 met Fasach Nua (talk) 16:52, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Comments, leaning support. I'll add comments here as I go through the article. I've finished my pass through.

  • "Arnold assessed that the Japanese defeat at Leyte ...": this is an unusual use of "assess"; could we make this something like "Arnold made an assessment that" or "Arnold determined that"?
    • Good point - the source says he 'suggested' it to LeMay then asked if Singapore could be attacked - I've tweaked this wording
  • It's a pity the map of the B-29 bomber bases doesn't show the location of Kharagpur; you say "eastern India", but that's a big area. I don't think this is critically important but if you could add the location of Kharagpur, in a style sympathetic to the look of this map, it would be useful.
    • It's already there (just to the south-west of Calcutta)
      Oops. So it is, way up in the corner; I was looking (evidently too quickly) at the east coast further south. I've changed the article to say "northeastern India" instead of "eastern", in case others are equally incapable of reading a map. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Civilian casualties from the bombing were limited" (from the lead) is a little inconsistent with "Many of the civilian workers in and around the dock were unable to escape and were killed".
    • Good point and that's from the same source - it meant that few civilians were killed overall and have I've tweaked the article's wording accordingly
  • Is there any information on why the Japanese murdered the injured Indonesian workers?
    • No, the source just says it happened and is referenced to an oral history interview conducted by the author of the journal article its sourced to so it's probably not possible to expand on this.
      A pity, but if the information isn't the source, there's no more to be said. The note on the working conditions is helpful. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've just added some material on the harsh working conditions for civilians at the base which provides context for this.
  • "The Command ceased staging through China": this is the first time this has been mentioned; I'm not sure what it means, and it sounds like perhaps it should have been mentioned earlier. Follow up: on rereading I think I understand this -- it doesn't need a prior mention. I think it means that XX Bomber Command was bombing targets around Japan, and refuelling in China -- is that correct? If so I think a couple of extra words of explanation for readers like me who are not militarily knowledgeable is all that's needed.
    • Yes, that's correct. I've tweaked the wording to hopefully make it clearer - what do you think?
      That's much clearer. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does "500 pound bombs" need a translation into metric units, as has been done for the distances?
    • This was the name of this kind of bomb, and I don't think that they necessarily weighted 500 pounds (as the weight would vary depending on the type of fuse used, etc) so an exact conversion would be misleading. I've added a link to the closest thing we have to an article on this topic (General-purpose bomb)
      Fair enough -- I suspected something like this was the case. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Overall this looks thorough and concise and the prose seems fairly clean. -- Mike Christie (talk – library) 00:53, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • Thank you for your comments Nick-D (talk) 01:49, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      I've struck my comments; I will read through again today to see if I can find any other issues before changing to support. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Japanese air defences for Singapore and Johore in Malaya": Were these defences spread across all of Johore state, or focused on the straits? I would have thought air defences elsewhere in Johore would have been of little use in the defence of Singapore. Or does the source simply not specify which of the listed resources were based at which location?
    • On re-checking the references the units were in Singapore only - I've fixed this. I looked through two major university libraries for further information on Singapore's defences, but this was the best I could find.
  • Is it known what the ship was that was destroyed at dock during the 1 February raid?
    • No, it's not named in the source and I wasn't able to find much further information about the Floating Dry Dock or the ships it serviced when I looked while developing the article.
  • It seems the account of the 112 B-29s that set out on the 1 February raid is incomplete; 88 reached Singapore, and 20 attacked Penang and Martaban. That leaves four. Two were destroyed, though it's not clear that those two are among the four unaccounted for. Did the four simply return to base without reaching target, because of mechanical or fuel issues? Perhaps it could also be specified where the bomber was lost to a fighter -- in Singapore or Penang or Martaban?
    • The source is vague about where the bomber was shot down and the other damaged - the wording strongly implies Singapore (the losses were "a cheap price for the second highly successful attack on Singapore"), but this isn't clear. The numbers in the article are those used in the source - the remaining four aircraft almost certainly would have aborted and returned to base with mechanical problems, but this isn't specified. I've tried to word this para so that the numbers aren't inclusive (eg, 'of the 88 aircraft that reached Singapore' and 'Of the remaining aircraft, 20 diverted and attacked').
      Do you think a reader might ask the same question I did? I wonder if it would be useful to add a footnote explaining that the sources are not specific and that the others probably aborted and returned to base; I don't think you would need a separate source for such a plausible statement. Up to you -- I'll strike the comment. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • As I can't say for certain what the 'missing' four aircraft did, I'll leave it as is (some of the aircraft would have dumped their bombs into the sea, but others may have attacked other secondary targets before returning to base)
          Fair enough. Mike Christie (talk – library) 23:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The local geography is unlikely to be familiar to most readers: I lived there as a child and have been back since, but I wouldn't have known where some of these places were. I suggest a couple of additional pointers on first mention of a couple of these locations: how about specifying that the Empire Docks were "at Singapore's southern tip", or "on the south coast"? And for Sebarok and Bukom islands, how about "dispatched to attack Bukom, Samboe and Sebarok islands, a couple of miles off Singapore's south coast"? Actually, I can't track down Samboe island at all via Google maps -- does it still exist?
    • Those are good points, done. I've done a bit more digging, and 'Samboe island' is now Sambu Island, so I've added a link (the island is still covered in oil tanks in Google earth)
      OK. How about changing the text to something like "to attack Bukom and Sebarok islands just off the south coast of Singapore, and Samboe island, a few miles further south, near Batam island, Indonesia"? The current text makes the reader question why Samboe isn't on the map.
        • Good point, done.
  • Is there a suitable Wikipedia article to link "Seletar War Crimes Trials"? It sounds like it might merit a red link, if no article exists currently.

-- Mike Christie (talk – library) 15:06, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • I've added a red link. Thanks again for your comments Mike - they're excellent. Nick-D (talk) 07:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      You're welcome. I'm switching to support, above; the only remaining comment I have is about the description of the location of Samboe island, and that's pretty minor. The new picture is definitely an improvement; this is a fine article. Mike Christie (talk – library) 13:03, 17 January 2011 (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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