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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Pusan Perimeter

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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.

Article promoted Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Pusan Perimeter edit

Nominator(s): —Ed!(talk)


At long last, the greater part of my work for the past few years is ready for A-class review. I apologize for its length (I've started doing more reviews to make up for it) but it encompasses 18 or so other articles, a lot of which have already passed A-class. —Ed!(talk) 03:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments: I've had a look at this. Most of my comments are mainly style/presentation things. After initially writing comments on typos/grammar errors, I opted to correct the obvious ones myself. Anyway, here goes:

  • Infobox: The UN belligerents, how are they ordered? Think the US should be ahead of the UK if done on troop numbers. NZ and the Netherlands only contributed ships to this battle. Assuming the combined complement of the three NZ frigates outnumber the complement of the Dutch destroyer, perhaps NZ should be ahead of the Netherlands.
  • Lead:
    • Needs to be consistency between usage of United Nations/UN and North Korea/NK, at first mention an abbreviation is provided, but then at times the term is repeated in full.
      • Abbreviations must be provided on first reference, but in the lead "North Korean" and "UN" are used consistently for the remainder of the text. —Ed!(talk) 01:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also consistency between "forces" and "troops".
      • I don't see what difference that makes, the words mean the same thing and aren't proper nouns. —Ed!(talk) 01:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Outbreak of war:
    • add (US) after first usage of United States. Shouldn't the United Nations and North Korea have the same treatment, as per the lead? Also (ROK) for Republic of Korea etc...needs to be consistently applied all the way through the article.
      • Once again, the abbreviations are only applied after first reference, and all of them were named in the lead. —Ed!(talk) 01:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "...24th Infantry Division soldiers were repeatedly defeated and forced south by the North Korean force's superior numbers and equipment." reads a little strange because of "force's". Maybe rephrase to "...24th Infantry Division soldiers were repeatedly defeated and forced south by the superior numbers and equipment of the North Koreans."?
      • I'd usually agree, but in this case it would actually be incorrect. The North Korean force contained a substantial number of forcibly conscripted South Koreans, so they weren't all from the North. —Ed!(talk) 01:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • North Korean advance:
    • the first sentence - "With Taejon captured North Korean forces...". Starting the sentence "With" looks strange (or is it just me!?). Maybe redraft to "Following the capture of Taejeon, North Korean..." or "Having captured Taejeon..."
    • Also, the "repeatedly" as used at end of 1st para could be moved "repeatedly pushing back..."
  • Terrain:
    • Should "P'ohong-dong" be linked?
    • 2nd para - what were the "South Korean forces in the north"?
  • Forces involved:
    • 3rd para should mention the Dutch destroyer. After all, the Netherlands do appear in the infobox.
  • UN logistics:
    • Redlink for Far East Command. Should this be U.S. Army Forces Far East?
      • No. That was a corps-level Army unit in World War II. This one oversaw all US military assets in the area. —Ed!(talk) 00:06, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • "...Eighth Army Rear which remained..." - is there a word missing after "Rear" or is that how it is supposed to appear?
      • That's the formal name for the rearguard echelon of the command. It's a common situation to call the deployed unit "forward" and the people supporting it from its home base the "rear." —Ed!(talk) 00:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • the dashes in the first para could be replaced with commas.
    • final para, final sentence - as "measured by" or "compared to"
      • That would imply they were being compared to American roads, when in fact the roads were assessed by Americans based on their military standards and labeled as secondary roads, not compared to anything. —Ed!(talk) 00:06, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • North Korean logistics:
    • 2nd para - "build-up", should that be "built-up"? I wonder if a better phrase would be "urban"?
      • Not in this instance. The supply centers were often moved away from urban centers later in the battle because they were being bombed so often. —Ed!(talk) 00:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Inconsistent usage of "North Korea People's Army" and "North Korean Army".
  • Defensive Position:
    • 2nd para: the sentence following note 77 seems clumsy, perhaps reword to something similar to "The installation of heavy duty cranes at Pusan's docks allowed for easier handling of heavy weapons and cargo, with a subsequent reduction in UN airlifts"
    • "starting at 230 in July" replace at with "with"
  • Counteroffensive:
    • 1st para, replace "his" with "Walker's". Otherwise I don't think it is explicitly clear that we are talking about Walker
    • Link to William B. Kean?
    • last sentence of 2nd para: "Task Force Kean's offensive had collided with one being delivered simultaneously by the North Korean 6th Division", might read better as "Task Force Kean's attack had collided with a simultaneous offensive being delivered by the North Korean 6th Division"
    • The 83rd division has been previously linked, no need to do so here.
    • replace "column" with "North Koreans" to make clear who is retreating
    • 4th para, can we replace "aviation" with "Corsairs", or did the Marines have other types of aircraft in support?
      • There were a large variety of aircraft at this point in the war. —Ed!(talk) 00:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Naktong Bulge:
    • Reword the 1st sentence? I don't it is necessary to mention the east turning of the Naktong. Suggest "About 7 miles (11 km) north of the confluence of the Naktong and Nam Rivers, the Naktong curves westward..."?
    • Fixed. —Ed!(talk) 03:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Suggest mentioning and linking John Church as commander of the 24th so you have context for him later on.
  • North Korean crossing:
    • the 2nd sentence, 2nd para probably should be broken down smaller. Suggest the second part be: "Heavy casualties were incurred by C Company, the first unit of the battalion to reach the post."
    • 2nd para: tanks AND armor? They are not mutually exclusive, perhaps you mean SPGs or halftracks?
    • 2nd para: Cloverleaf Hill sort of suddenly drops in there, maybe "to an elevated feature known as Cloverleaf Hill"?
    • 3rd para: "regain the Cloverleaf Hill", delete "the"
    • 3rd para: first mention of Church, see my comments under Naktong Bulge above.
    • 3rd para: the sentence following note 120, suggest adding "as" or "with" after the word "inexperienced"
    • 5th para, some switches between North Korean and NK.
      • Standardized per MOS. —Ed!(talk) 03:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • North Korean defeat:
    • 1st para, should Infantry be spelled with a capital I?
    • 2nd para is a little confusing as to whether the Marines attacked Cloverleaf Hill or Obong-ni first
    • 2nd para, "the force" is unclear - Task Force Hill or the Marines or the US forces? I think it should be the Marines.
    • 3rd para, 1st sentence: force should be plural, and if corrected, the phrase "US forces" is repeated in the same sentence.
    • NK/North Korean issues in this section
      • Fixed to comply with MOS. —Ed!(talk) 03:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Eastern Corridor:
    • 1st para, the reference to the line should be clarified - the Taegu-P'ohang-dong road? And I assume that this is the Eastern corridor?
  • Triple offensive:
    • NK/North Korean/ROK/South Korea issues in this section
      • Again this complies with MOS. For the South Koreans it isn't really applicable (ROK is a political organization while 'South Korean' is an ethnic group, as it does in this instance refer to government units, and then to people. —Ed!(talk) 03:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • 2nd para, 2nd sentence: delete far or replace with very or maybe significant, assuming that is supported by your references.
    • 2nd para, 3rd sentence: what is this? Send the guns back or cross the river?
    • 2nd para, 8th sentence: shells could be artillery, reference to the 22nd and 23rd regiments which I assume from the 3rd division. I don't think it is necessary to specify them anyway, a reference to South Korean/ROK troops is probably sufficient.
    • 3rd para, needs context for the ROK Capital Division.
    • 3rd para, last sentence: Town is repeated twice, suggest "fighting moved to the surrounding hills" to get rid of the second usage.
  • Fight for P'ohang-dong
    • 1st para: what is the correct spelling for "Yongil Airfield"? It is referred to as "Yonil" in "Eastern Corridor" section.
    • 2nd para, 3rd sentence: suggest replace division with North Koreans or NK troops.
    • 2nd para: Kyongju corridor hasn't been defined.
    • 2nd para: probably no need for usage of NK towards the end of this para
  • Taegu: no issues here.
  • Taegu advance:
    • 1st para: should Sangju be linked?
    • 2nd para: shouldn't it be "forcing the North Koreans to scatter into the mountains"?
    • 3rd para: the NK 15th division united? Suggest reassembled.
    • 3rd para: Do you mean the 15th, not the 13th? Do you mean "Near" or "in" Yuhak-san rather than "on"?
  • Triangulation Hill:
    • 2nd para: link General Gay?
    • 3rd para, 1st sentence: preparation?
  • Yongp'o
    • 1st para, 2nd sentence: which division?
    • 1st para: which division did 25th regiment belong to?
    • 1st para: "back through Yongp'o", when did they first go through Yongp'o?
  • Carpet bombing
    • source for destruction of artillery batteries? Sounds hard to believe if no evidence to indicate any NKs were killed.
      • Done. And yeah, the UN couldn't directly observe the aftereffects of the bombing except through long-range surveillance, and of course it isn't known if the North Koreans ever documented it as they haven't been forthcoming with tactical information. —Ed!(talk) 04:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • September push: One comment I'll make here is that this doesn't have the detailed discussion of the actions that the earlier sections do, so one is left with an impression that this section glosses over the September portion of the battle. I'm not sure how this would be dealt with other than transferring some of the material (not all of it) from The Great Naktong Offensive - which is what think should happen. I wonder what other reviewers think?
    • The main problem here is that the Great Naktong Offensive article primarily summarizes sub-battles, too. It would be superfluous duplication to add the info to both articles, and the offensive is generally covered as a different, dedicated engagement in sources. Also WP:SIZE is an issue here, with both articles topping 100K. —Ed!(talk) 04:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • 1st para: "fewer than 100 tanks by the time the Pusan Perimeter fight" - wording issue here. Is this referring to numbers at start of battle or by late August?
    • 3rd para: repeated use of "Division". Suggest treating this section the same as 1st para of "Taegu advance" section which also dealt with a number of NK divisions. Does note 179 cover all of these divisions?
    • 5th para: a number of links here already present in article, e.g. Eighth Army. This is the first time Walton Walker's name mentioned in full with rank, despite being referred to several times previously earlier in the article.
  • Casualties:
    • 4th para: link to SU-76?
      • It's linked earlier in the article. —Ed!(talk) 04:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • War crimes:
    • There was one large paragraph which I split, otherwise looks reasonable.
  • Implications: Ignores the first phase of the battle, jumps straight into the goals of the Great Naktong Offensive. To me, this reinforces the need for the "September push" to be expanded.
    • Reworded it more inclusively. —Ed!(talk) 04:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Citations:
    • Note 167 (Paik) checked.
    • Note 232 should be Hanley, not Henry, but I'm not sure what on page 1 of the book is being referenced anyway. I don't have any of the other cited sources to spotcheck.

Okay, I've done my dash here. Hope it is useful. Zawed (talk) 11:02, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've responded to all of your comments. Thank you for such a comprehensive review. —Ed!(talk) 04:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks all good to me :) Zawed (talk) 22:42, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Comments: sorry, only a technical review from me at this stage.
    • I wonder if the article shouldn't be named "Battle of the Pusan Perimeter" rather than "Battle of Pusan Perimeter" (probably best to get a few opinions on this);
      • Sources universally refer to it as "Battle of Pusan Perimeter" or "Pusan Perimeter campaign." —Ed!(talk) 04:00, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • there are no dab links, ext links all work (no action required);
    • some images have alt text, but some don't. It's not an A-class requirement, but you might consider adding it in: [1];
    • File:Saddle Ridge near Taegu - Pusan Perimeter.jpg, probably needs date and author information to pass muster at FAC;
    • File:Marines carrying wounded - Pusan.jpg, same as above;
    • File:South Koreans at Pusan.jpg, labelled as US Army, but has a US Marines PD tag, probably should be US Army PD tag;
    • the duplicate link checker found some examples of potential overlink (please check if they are all necessary): Republic of Korea Army, Eighth United States Army, Japan, Waegwan, World War II, 2nd Infantry Division (United States), Andong, Naktong River, Taegu, US Major General, Inchon,
    • is there a place of publishing for: Catchpole, Fehrenbach, Hanley et al, Hoyt, Leckie, Marolda, Millett 2000, and Stewart?
    • there are a few citations to "Appleman 2003", but I don't see this source in the Sources list;
    • there is a citation to "Varhola 2004", but in the Sources list there is only a 2000 work;
    • the time format seems like it might need to be tweaked by adding a colon per WP:MOSTIME. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:24, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • there is a citation to "Catchpole 2003", but I only see Catchpole 2001 in the References. AustralianRupert (talk) 02:53, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • minor issue: in your References sometimes you spell out the state in full (e.g. Lincoln, Nebraska), sometimes you abbreviate (e.g. Mason City, IA). Probably should be consistent. AustralianRupert (talk) 05:43, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments -- Christ this is a big article, but you told us that up front... ;-)

  • Copyedited pretty extensively so pls check I didn't alter any meaning by accident. Further prose/content points:
    • "Troop numbers at the beginning of the battle were initially difficult to estimate for US and North Korean forces." -- Can I just make sure I understand what you're saying here, that it was difficult for US and NK forces at the time to estimate their own numbers at the start of the engagement? Or did you mean it's difficult for historians now to estimate what the numbers were at the start of the action?
      • There are now only rough estimates, especially for the North Koreans. —Ed!(talk) 19:50, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Okay, think the text needs to change then because what it looks like you're saying in the article currently is that back then it was hard to estimate, when I think you mean it's hard for historians looking back to estimate. Suggest you change the line in question to "US and North Korean troop numbers at the beginning of the battle are difficult to estimate". Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:54, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I wonder if the Logistics section needs to be quite so detailed given there's a dedicated article on it. Specifically I found the first para of UN Logistics, revolving around the Eighth Army's role(s), to be heavy going and perhaps not that vital to this article as a whole.
    • "strategic North Korean logistics targets behind the front lines" -- Pretty sure "strategic" targets are, by definition, "behind the front lines", so I think you can do without one of those terms.
    • "The North Koreans were also not able to effectively use sea transport to their advantage" -- Likewise, if someone uses something "effectively", it's bound to be "to their advantage", so should be able to drop one term or the other.
    • "The Perimeter was the last stand for the UN forces that had seen successive defeats during the first month of the war" -- From memory, "successive" generally refers to two things one after the other. Do you mean the UN had had two defeats, or was it more? If the latter, suggest "continued" or "regular" or some such.
      • Not necessarily, at least as far as online sources state. I take it to mean nonspecific multiple events in succession, not just two. —Ed!(talk) 22:07, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Under Taegu: "In the meantime, Walker had established Taegu as the Eighth Army's headquarters" -- In the meantime of what exactly? While all the fighting in the Eastern Corridor was going on, or just in the meantime of what was described in the last sentence or two of the preceding subsection? We need a bit more context to open this subsection...
    • "Trapped between the two fires they started to vacate their positions" -- Sorry, what are "the two fires" exactly?
    • You include a paragraph on Medals of Honor awarded to US personnel. Do we assume that no ROK or other UN troops received their nation's highest awards for conduct during the battle? What about the top North Korean medal for gallantry? Any of those handed out?
      • I mentioned one British soldier who was awarded a VC shortly after. I know for other UN nations the answer's no because few to none of them saw a lot of combat. The South Koreans didn't establish their highest medal until mid-October, and as for North Korea, it's next to impossible to tell, as only a few Hero of the Republic of North Korea awards are known, mostly for relatively high ranking generals like Lee Kwon Mu. —Ed!(talk) 19:50, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Further, although one-paragraph (sub)sections are generally discouraged, I don't think awards belong under Casualties and probably should have their own heading.
      • Moved it out of that section. —Ed!(talk) 22:07, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nothing more to say about Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, and New Zealand in this battle except that they provided ships? I ask out of genuine curiousity, not a loaded question... ;-)
      • They all got ground troops into Korea pretty quickly thereafter, but unfortunately not in time for Pusan Perimeter. —Ed!(talk) 19:50, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Structure looks fine (except perhaps including awards in Casualties, as noted above).
  • Supporting materials look okay, all images and the map are US govt as far as I could see.
  • References look reliable. Haven't spotchecked as I've done so before on at least one of Ed's articles and was satisfied.
  • To summarise, a mammoth effort and one I think I'll be able to support once the above are acknowledged. I suppose my only caveat is that having gone to considerable lengths to correct or improve prose, I may have missed issues with the overall flow. Hopefully such things would've been apparent to other reviewers though... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:36, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I thank you for your extensive copyedit, I appreciate it. I've responded to everything, let me know if you have any other points. —Ed!(talk) 22:07, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: The August Push section could use a rewrite to accommodate the narrative/logic flow of September Push section (or vise versa). I have been following Ed's development on the article ever since his first edit, and I have noticed that the August Push section and the September Push section were put together by two completely different approaches. The August Push section were put together by summarizing all the battle sub-articles, while the bigger pictures were only invoked to link those summaries together. The September Push section, on the other hand, were put together by writing about the bigger picture first, then the battle sub-articles were developed once the bigger pictures were explained. Because of the narrative differences between those two sections, this entire article feels poorly structured, if not unfinished. On one hand, the command decisions and strategies of opposing forces were never examined in detail in the August Push section because it was never discussed outside the context of the individual battles. On the other hand, the September Push section feels empty because Ed did a such good job in describing all the sub-battles in the previous section. By my own personal experience I would fix this problem by rewriting the entire August Push section using the top-down approach employed in the September Push section, but I believe other writing approaches could also be used to make the two sections flow better. Anyway, the remedy for this problem is too big for a patch job fix so I will not hold it against this article in this review, but I would deem it a top priority task if Ed intended to take this article to FAC. Jim101 (talk) 02:27, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Jim, thanks for your comments and all your help on this page. I followed along with Appleman's narrative of the battle as the starting point for the content, and I did a lot of considering the options when forming the August and September subsections. Let me know what you think of my rationales:
  1. The biggest issue is the nature of the two rounds of attacks was very different. In August it seems more like there wasn't a coordinating offensive for all of the battles, more of a "division vs division" series of simultaneous duels more like four independent little wars than a unified offensive. In comparing the two, it seems like a summary of the September offensive as a single fight is easier, while each August fight requires context.
  2. I feel like The Great Naktong Offensive covers the September battles, which are somewhat more complex (eight battles along five corridors) and they're hard to sum up. Adding them here would both make that article redundant and add another 100K to this article. —Ed!(talk) 22:32, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, given the NK never released any battle records like the Chinese, this does seem to be a research problem than a writing problem. I can only suggest that a detailed study of NK invasion into SK before the battle should be invoked in the context of August Push section...if sources are available. I can think of few things that can provide more contexts in the "division on division" battles:
  • Before the invasion, did NK ever released a timetable for reaching Pusan, or timetables for reaching each sites of the August battles? Did any battle happened before Pusan battle significantly altered those timetables? Did NK forces took the timing of UN reinforcements into their timetable?
  • Naktong River and Taebeak Mountains are two dominating terrain features in South Korea, so did NK ever considered those terrain obstacles in their invasion planning?
  • Did NK assumed that the UN forces is already disintegrated before the battle? If not, what weak points in UN defense did NK forces identified before the battle?
  • Did the UN interdiction campaigns affected the NK forces before the battle?
Those are some of the ideas I can think of to provide more context in the August Push section. My overall suggestion is to provide more context in the August Push section while trimming down the details of the individual battles, and this will help readers to better understand the battle as a whole while cutting down on the article size. Jim101 (talk) 19:15, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Of your first note, I have been considering expanding Operation Pokpoong into a large campaign article to cover the beginning of the war to the end of this battle. (Similar to how UN Offensive, 1950 will in theory cover the war from Inchon to the Ch'ongch'on River) As to the rest, I mention in "September Push" that Kim Il-Sung ordered victory by September 1 and seems to have left it up to Choi Yong-kun, Kim Chaek, and their Corps commanders to make it happen. I believe they just sought to attack the four main inroads to the Perimeter (Masan, Taegu, the Naktong River and P'ohang-dong) and hope one would break, essentially a less coordinated lead-up to the Great Naktong Offensive. I've tried to include all of this in the article, where appropriate. —Ed!(talk) 22:22, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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