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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Arthur W. Radford

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Arthur W. Radford edit

Nominator(s): —Ed!(talk)


I am nominating this article for A-Class review. —Ed!(talk) 16:53, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I like this one. Especially the pic in the infobox. Okay, comments:

  • Commander Air Force, Pacific Fleet should be Commander, Naval Air Forces, Pacific Fleet and linked to Commander, Naval Air Forces
  • Link Carrier Division Eleven to Carrier Strike Group Eleven (most of your red links are actually blue)
  • Similarly, Carrier Division Six is Carrier Strike Group Six
  • he was ordered onto the light aircraft carrier USS Independence (CVL-22) What does this mean?
  • How about adding the WWII campaigns to the infobox?
  • Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, visited Radford and was so impressed with him that he ordered rear admiral John H. Towers to transfer Radford to a newly formed training division. But you haven't said what Towers' job was. (And it gets more confusing below when you mention him again, because he is no longer in the same job.)
  • However, in an attack on the night of 26 November, Edward O'Hare, the group commander of the Enterprise air group, was shot down and killed. I'm not sure what the significance of this is. Suggest dropping the sentence.
  • in March 1944 he was ordered to Washington, D.C. and appointed as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. He assumed this new duty on 1 April under Vice Admiral John S. McCain, Sr. No, that is not correct.
  • After six months in this duty, new Chief of Naval Operations Aubrey W. Fitch returned Radford to the Pacific theater. No,no, no. The CNO throughout was Admiral Ernest J. King. Look these people up on the Wikipedia. (more to come) Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:08, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • he was appointed as commander of the First Carrier Task Force in Carrier Division SixNot quite right.
  • Radford flew to Ulithi where he reported to McCain You should say what McCain's command was (TF 58)
  • Returning to the Third Fleet and being re-designated Task Group 38.4 No, the Fifth Fleet became the Third again, so the TF and TG numbers changed.
    • Yes, this was July 1945. 5th Fleet became 3rd Fleet for the last time in April 1945. —Ed!(talk) 01:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Radford was promoted to vice admiral in late 1945 Can we do better than that? Vague phrases make it hard for the poor schnooks trying to paraphrase us.
    • The reference only gives the year, and the other sources confirm it was between V-E Day and 1 Jan 1946. —Ed!(talk) 01:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Radford also questioned the Air Force idea that U.S. air power should focus on nuclear weapons as its primary deterrent to war Can you double-check this? Because my recollection is that Radford was a strong supporter of naval nuclear weapons; but I am on holiday and my books are not here, so I am doing all this from memory...
    • Clarified. He was an opponent specifically of USAF over-relying on nuclear-delivery airpower, not of nuclear weapons in general. —Ed!(talk) 01:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You should note what UNC stands for
  • Still, the trip made enough of a good impression on Eisenhower that he sought to nominate Radford to be his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff I think you mean Radford rather than the trip. The point is that in acquiescing to Truman's decision to remove MacArthur, the Joint Chiefs, and Bradley in particular, had become politicized, and Eisenhower removed them all. So Radford, whose career had been in a tailspin after the revolt, suddenly found himself recalled from exile.
  • Following the end of his second term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Radford opted to retire from the Navy in 1957. Following this, Do we have to repeat "following"?
  • Radford died at 77 on 17 August 1973I think you mean at age 77?

Ahhhh, that should do it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:56, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments at this stage:

Early life

  • "After several months of tutoring at an Annapolis, Maryland, he..." - at an? I think the location should mentioned at first mention of the academy. Also was he a tutor or was he receiving tuition?
  • "among other students" doesn't read well to me - just a suggestion, perhaps "to his fellow students".
  • Should 59 be 59th?

Military career

  • Is the use of tour of duty appropriate for the navy? Should it be posting or something similar? I suggest combining the first two sentences; maybe "Radford's first posting was aboard the battleship USS South Carolina,[2] on which he saw his first duty during World War I."
  • was his second tour on South Carolina?

Aviation Training Division

  • "Radford convinced Congressman Carl Vinson, chair of the House Naval Affairs Committee." Convinced him to do what?
  • repeated use of established, professionals and variants in last sentences of this section.

Sea duty

  • "This operation successful, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz sent Task Force 15, with Lexington, under Rear Admiral Charles A. Pownall, and Radford and Pownall steamed for Tarawa Atoll to strike it." Repeated use of Pownall, suggest rephrasing. Also, was Radford still commanding Princeton?

Major combat operations

  • Repeated use of operation in first few sentences.
  • In first para, Radford commands Task Group 50.2; in second he commands Carrier Division Eleven?
  • "make learn" - might need to explain this term?

Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet

  • "In these years," should that be "In this position" or "While in this position"?

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  • The first sentence repeats the last part of the last sentence of the previous para
  • In the para starting "In 1956, Radford..." there is repeated use of "reduce" and "reductions"

I did a quick passover of the text and fixed the odd typo. Otherwise, this article looks good. Zawed (talk) 09:43, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your review! —Ed!(talk) 13:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
All good Ed!, adding my support now. Cheers. Zawed (talk) 22:32, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

  • What evidence is there to link the modern Carrier Strike Groups with the WWII-era Carrier Divisions of the same number? The Navy doesn't seem to make the connection anywhere that I looked. The page for CSG 7 only traced its ancestry back to 1956, not Carrier Division 7 and CSG 11 only seems to go back to the late '60s.
    • Jumping in here: the Carrier Divisions were renamed Carrier Strike Groups in 1973. [1] Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:09, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • You seem to be correct, but that's not really what I was talking about. The Navy does not trace lineage and honors the same way that the Army or the RN do where the units of the same name or number are considered to be the same unit, just temporarily inactive at times. Battle stars/honours in the USN are only valid for the actual ship that earned them; those earned by earlier ships are irrelevant. In the RN battle honours accumulate under a ship's name and the current incarnation is considered to have earned all of them. And much the same is true of US Army units. The official history of CSG 7 makes no reference to the lineage of CarDiv 7 [2] and the capper is [3] which explicitly states that lineage and history cannot be traced to all units using the same name/number, p. 541. To do so a unit must have been in continuous existence, regardless of its designation.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, but see also the articles on Carrier Strike Groups One, Two, Three, Six and Ten, which all reference the WWII Carrier Divisions. Now, although the USN does not handle things the same as the Army or RAN, the idea of the link is to direct the reader to where more information can be found, and by and large this is the case. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:27, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • You might want to look a little more closely at the sources for those articles because I found only one that was from an official Navy website (CSG 10) and that traces back to Destroyer Flotilla 2, not a carrier division. And from reading the other histories of the CSGs they all mention ancestry from a postwar CruDesRon, not the wartime CarDivs. I certainly can't find a conclusive source, but I'm about 99% satisfied that there's no official lineage/traditions connecting the wartime divisions with the modern units. GlobalSecurity.org really isn't a RS and doesn't count; that's the primary source for WW2 connection in the current articles. So AFAIK, these should all be redlinks, but I won't hold it against you, Ed, if you choose to ignore me in this.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 07:01, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • I don't know much about Naval unit lineage, so I don't want to mess with it either way. —Ed!(talk) 12:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Totally irrelevant to this review, but I found it very odd to note that I've been to every place Radford lived in the Early Life para.
    • Well that's unusual. What are the odds? —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I know, how many people have ever been to Grinnell, Iowa?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fighter squadrons aboard 2 battleships and a seaplane tender? Is somebody calling scouting units fighter squadrons? Tucker seems to be confused here.
    • Agreed. Changing this to "aircraft squadron units" so as to avoid SYNTH. —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's a terrible term. Is there some other source that you can use that covers that part of Radford's early career? The DANFS entries for the ships might mention what squadrons they hosted and you might be able to track them down through [4] Mind you, it will immensely tedious, but you should be able to find Scouting One, if that was his squadron, in there somewhere.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now VF-1B was a fighter squadron and should be called that.
  • established training literature should be "wrote" training literature.
  • Change "american football" to just football. This is an American-centric article afterall.
  • How could Radford be assigned as a carrier division commander before he got command of Division 11? I suspect that Tucker meant that he was tapped for division command because he spent several months learning division command before getting his own division.
    • Agreed. Changed the wording here too. —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't actually think that Galvanic was the first time that the Americans faced Japanese land-based air power while the ground pounders fought it out. That dubious honor goes to Guadalcanal, IMO.
    • Ugh, that's also right. Clearly this book needed some more proofing. —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • This confuses me since I don't know the hierarchy here First Carrier Task Force, Carrier Division Six Did he command both or was one or the other superior to the other?
    • The task force was a sub-unit of the carrier division. —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'll need to look at this one again, now that you've answered my question.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • The carrier division was primarily an permanent administrative unit, the task group an ad hoc combat one. A task group in 1944 usually consisted of one or two carrier divisions, one or two cruiser divisions and a destroyer squadron. Now the CarDivs and CruDivs had flag officers commanding them, so the senior CarDiv commander became the task group commander and the senior CruDiv commander commanded the screen. (Note that the latter might actually be senior to the former, but the senior carrier admiral was always in command.) Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:27, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • If it is wrong, then it is my fault and not Ed's. I would unlink rather than red link, as no ship divisions have articles as such. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:53, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who did Radford replace in TG 38.1?
    • Added the name. (a redlink) —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is meant by this? Radford's force continued its use of night raids, which by this point were effective in repelling Japanese attacks on U.S. Navy ships Does this mean preemptively attacking Japanese aircraft before they took off, or is this some sort of night CAP?
    • Both. The source indicates he supported night fighters and used them both to defend his ships at night and to attack Japanese aircraft they spotted. —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sounds more like night CAP coupled with fighter sweeps around his ships than actual raids since I'd associate the latter term with attacks over Japanese territory in daylight. Can you find a source that clarifies this? Check the online docs from the Navy Library at [5] for possible material.
  • The DCNO (Air) has no formal relationship to the Secretary of the Navy. Is there a link for DCNO (Air)?
    • No unfortunately, and I don't know enough about the position to create one. —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • What are fast-attack carrier aircraft? As opposed to slow-attack carrier aircraft. If you mean jets, then say so, although this is way early for any significant deployments of Navy jet-powered attack aircraft, AFAIK.
    • Jumping in again. Fast attack carriers were the large ones, as opposed to the smaller slower anti-submarine warfare (ASW) (or escort) carriers. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:15, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK, so I was parsing the phrase wrongly by focusing on the aircraft, not their carrier. Clarify the wording then to emphasize that.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • When was Radford appointed High Commissioner?
    • No source gives a specific date. —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I was just wondering how long he was Commissioner since it seems like a few months at best.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, he spent a very short time as VCNO before being nominated as CINCPAC. It's not unheard of, much like Martin Dempsey as the Army Chief of Staff, likely the result of an unexpected political shift in favor from one general to another. —Ed!(talk) 12:50, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Shouldn't most of the last para in the Postwar section be moved to the Commander Pacific Feet or Revolt of the Admirals section?
    • No, all of that occurred while Radford was VCNO and before his nomination. Only after he became CINCPACFLT did those debates intensify into the "revolt." —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • This seems a bit too fluffy: gained an in-depth understanding of the sociopolitical issues facing each nation and the region as a whole. Learned about I could accept, but this seems like something from a resume or something.
  • The caption in the picture of Radford and McArthur is wrong. MacArthur is on the right.
  • Fix the wording in the ribbon array: it's the "Order of the Bath", not Order of Bath.
  • This seems kind of redundant: accorded to a former four-star admiral, and a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff The primary difference is that there's a higher-ranking and more numerous crowd for ranking individuals vs. a lieutenant.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 08:47, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fixed. Thanks for your review. —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • CommentsSupport
    • No dab links [6] (no action required).
    • External links check out [7] (no action required).
    • Images lack Alt Text [8] so you might consider adding it (not and ACR requirement though - suggestion only).
    • The Citation Check Tool reveals no issues with reference consolidation (no action required).
    • Most images are PD as seem appropriate to the article, couple of points:
      • File:Uss south carolina bb.jpg lacks author, date etc so its difficult to assess its claims for PD.
    • Once again the Earwig Tool doesn't appear to be working but given the editor's previous contributions I have no reason to suspect any issues with copyright violations [9]. Google searches reveal nothing (no action required).
    • One duplicate link: Ernest J. King.
    • Is the terminology right here: "In his over 40 years of military service..." Specifically do Americans refer to service in the Navy as "military service"? Or would "naval service" be more accurate? British and Australian English (AFAIK) makes a distinction between the two, that is the military is Army and Air Force (and Navy is obviously naval).
      • That's the norm in the U.S. anyway. I've never heard of Naval service being a special distinction. —Ed!(talk) 13:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • This seems a bit redundant to me: "...Navy's naval aviator training programs...", consider instead: "...naval aviator training programs..."
    • I know this has been the subject of deliberations above but I wonder if this might be further reworded: "...and served with aircraft squadron units...", couldn't this be more simply worded as "aircraft squadrons" (suggestion only).
    • This seems redundant: "training and refining their aircraft operations...", perhaps just "training and refining aircraft operations..."
    • Presentation here I think: "On the night of 17–18 September..." probably should be "On the night of 17/18 September..."
    • "...missing the battle of Leyte Gulf which took place...", as a noun "Battle of Leyte Gulf" should be capitalised.
    • This seems a little awkward: "...Radford was a principal opponent in a plan to merge the uniformed services...", consider instead: "Radford was a principal opponent to a plan to merge the uniformed services..."
    • "...a political Navy victory...", might this work better as "...a political victory for the Navy..."
    • "As commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines and Formosa...", should this be "The Philippines"?
    • "Radford died at age 77 on 17 August 1973...", do we know what from?
      • Natural causes, presumably. —Ed!(talk) 13:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • There seems to be little infomation included about his personal life. Is anything like this available in the sources? Specifically was he married? Did he have any offspring? etc.
      • The only reference to a wife was from his memoirs, which I added. I had been trying to avoid primary sources so it wouldn't be a problem at FAC, but I think this detail shouldn't be a big issue. —Ed!(talk) 13:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Otherwise this looks quite good to me. Anotherclown (talk) 05:36, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's everything. Thanks for your review. —Ed!(talk) 13:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • All my points have been addressed so I've added my support. Looks good. Anotherclown (talk) 14:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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