Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Military history of Australia during World War II

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. 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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Military history of Australia during World War II

Passed --Eurocopter (talk) 13:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

A very good article, recently passed GA, will mostly likely make FAC.--Oneiros (talk) 20:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/Military history of Australia during World War II/archive1

Comment - as Nick-D is the primary contributor of this article, shouldn't he be the one involved in its A-Class Review? Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 00:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment - I'm sure he will in due time. I see no reason why I can't request a review, thus starting the process.--Oneiros (talk) 00:18, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment I was going to make a few minor changes (mainly adding a few extra refs, checking that none of the references are duplicated and fixing a couple of awkard sentances) and then nominate the article this weekend, so it doesn't make much difference. Nick-D (talk) 00:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

If it is okay with Nick, then in this case I don't think it matters much, but I still believe it should reside with the primary contributor(s) to start a review process such as GAN, ACR and FAC. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 02:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I can't find that mentioned in the rules anywhere (Wikipedia:GA, WP:MHR#A-CLASS, WP:FAR); I was bold.  :-)--Oneiros (talk) 14:12, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• Comment External links are ok, but there are a few disambig links that need to be looked at and if need be correct. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:43, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment The tool template was testing Military history of Australia during_World War I instead of Military history of Australia during World War II. The latter has exactly one disambig (Auxiliaries) and I think that shouldn't be diambiged.--Oneiros (talk) 01:06, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Sorry; thanks for double checking. I tried to the best of my ability to limit making mistakes of this nature, but being spellogically challenged I was expecting at least 1 error to pop up somewhere. And not all disambig links can be fixed, and the "and if need be" part. I know this because the ship article routine feature an "otherships" template that is specifically designed to link to the main disambig page. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:29, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
      • No problem; thanks for adding the tools. It helped me fixing some externals.--Oneiros (talk) 02:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Lawrencema

• A1: Pass
• A2: Comment Pass:
  • In the "Outbreak of war" section I'd like to see a little bit more information on why Australians enlisted. Was it for similar reasons to WW1 or something else? Was it primarily to defend Australia against Japan or to assist Britain?
    •  Done Nick-D (talk) 06:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
  • In the "After the war" section I'd also like a little bit more expansion on what happened to the soldiers after the war ended. At the moment it just says the demobilisation "went smoothly". Was there a soldier-settlement plan similar to WW1? How many men had to be demobbed? Did the increase of women in the work force affect this at all? The Australian home front during World War II article is very limited at the moment, and doesn't answer these questions either. Possibly some of the information in the "Home Front" section can be chopped out to the home front article...? Maybe there should also be a link to an article about the relationships between Australians and American servicemen in Australia.
    •  Done (I think) There was a discussion about the article's length on the talk page recently in which I suggested moving the 'Home Front' section to the dedicated article, but this was not supported by the other three editors who commented there. I just checked about a dozen major sources and none of them mention female employment as having any impact on returning service personnel. Unfortunetly I don't think that there is an article about interactions between Australians and Americans during the war. Nick-D (talk) 06:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
  • In the section "Advance to the Philippines" says "The Army's prolonged period of relative inactivity during 1944 led to public concern in Australia." Can this be expanded a little?
    •  Done - there's not much to add though. Nick-D (talk) 06:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
      • I still think this needs work. Further on in the article it mentions concerns about the Army being wasted in the Borneo Campaign. I'm assuming these were from different critics, so maybe some explanation of where the criticism was coming from would be useful.Lawrencema (talk) 05:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
        • I'll see what else I can find. Nick-D (talk) 06:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  • In the section "North Africa", it says "On 30 March 1941, a German-led force launched an offensive in Cyrenaica which rapidly defeated the Allied forces in the area, forcing a general withdrawal towards Egypt". My copy of "Knight's Cross, A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel" (Fraser, 1994) states that on March 24, a German battalion launched a limited offensive (one battalion) which took El Aghiela, but it wasn't until March 31 that the 5th Division advanced on Mersa El Brega (page 229). On the other hand Erwin_Rommel#The_first_Axis_offensive states that the offensive began on March 24 with the entire 5th division (which agrees with the U.S. Army map of the offensive) (How do you link an image without actually putting the image in this comment?).
    •  Done - changed to 'In the last week of March 1941' which is what the reference the article gives actually says and captures the ambiguity over when the offensive exactly began (and you can link images by adding a : before the file name - I've made this change to your post, which I hope is OK). Nick-D (talk) 06:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
• A3: Pass
• A4: Comment:Pass
  • There's quite a number of piped links which as per Wikipedia:MOSLINK#Piped_links are "easter eggs" which require the user to follow the link to understand what the term is referring to. Examples "was met by", "Army reinforcements", "series of death marches", etc.
    • This was an attempt to keep the article's length down, and follows the practice used in the World War II article for the same reason. I imagine that there are at least some instances where it would be more meaningful to include a more descriptive link though - could you please specify these? Nick-D (talk) 06:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
      • I actually prefer the use of "main" and "further information" templates (for example, replace "ill-prepared Australian militia brigade" with "ill-prepared Australian militia brigade known as Maroubra Force and replace the link "was met by" to Kokoda Track Campaign with a "main" link), but it's just a preference. Also, why use the name "Maroubra Force" in that section, but not "Gull Force" or "Sparrow Force" (for example) in the section on the NEI? As for "Army reinforcements", maybe have a separate sentence on the Northern Territory Force, as the rest of the paragraph refers to "these air units". Again though, these are just my preferences.Lawrencema (talk) 12:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
        • I've made those specific changes, and I think that the article is the better for it. Nick-D (talk) 02:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• A5: Pass. Would it be possible to create a world map with the locations of Australian forces at the outbreak of the war against Japan? Maybe it's just a pipe dream, but I'd like to see where each division/brigade (as well as squadrons/major capital ships) was in December 1941. If it's too difficult, don't worry about it. I won't oppose the A-class nom because of it.
  • There are maps in John Coates' excellent An Atlas of Australia's Wars which do just that, but it will take a while to reproduce them given the number of units and locations involved. This is a great idea, and I'll include these by the time the article is nominated for FA status. Nick-D (talk) 06:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
• Overall: Support. Lawrencema (talk) 12:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Support. This is a great article and represents a mammoth effort on Nick's part. A few comments:

• General: I tend to agree with Lawrencema that more decriptive links to battles could be employed, though I understand Nick's response above re. keeping length down. An example that stood out for me (with the air force focus) was under Papuan Campaign: "Following the defeat at Wau the Japanese attempted to reinforce Lae in preparation for an expected Allied offensive in the area. This ended in disaster when a troop convoy was destroyed by USAAF and RAAF aircraft." MacArthur called the Battle of the Bismarck Sea "the decisive aerial engagement" of the South-West Pacific war (Stephens, p.164) and No. 9 Operational Group RAAF was heavily involved, so it might be worth another line and/or more explicit identification.

•  Done (I think) - I've de-easter egged most of the battles except where the action was either relatively minor or the text is pretty descriptive. According to Gavin Long the RAAF flew 67 sorties during the Battle of the Bismark Sea compared to the USAAF's 335 so I'm a bit reluctant to expand this much further

• Just mentioning the battle name and 9OG does the trick as far as I'm concerned. Yep, no suggestion RAAF did as much work as USAAF, simply that from 'our' point of view it was a significant effort in a major battle - but, as I say, it looks fine to me now. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• Intro: "...Australia shifted the focus of its foreign policy to supporting the United States rather than Britain." You've probably done more research on this than I but the current wording doesn't quite ring true to me. Australia was "supporting" Britain in Malaya through the 50s and early 60s. Also, during the war it wasn't so much a case of "supporting" the US instead of Britain, as "wanting support from" the US (thinking of Curtin's "...looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional ties or kinship with the United Kingdom" speech). Suggest rewording the sentence to "...Australia shifted the focus of its foreign policy to closer allegiance with the United States rather than Britain."
  •  Done Much better
• Outbreak of war: "At the time war was declared the Australian armed forces were less well-prepared than they had been at the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 and were unready for war." I don't think that "and were unready for war" adds much - to me the sentence reads better without it.
  •  Done The para and surrounding text does a better job of describing the state of the military than those words
• Air War over Europe: "Few RAAF personnel volunteered to remain in Europe, however, and both squadrons were instead disbanded in January 1946." Don't think "instead" is necessary with the "however" there.
  •  Done
• Malaya and Singapore: "These escapees included Major General Bennett, who was found to have not been justified in leaving his command by two post-war inquiries." Suggest "These escapees included Major General Bennett, who was found by two post-war inquiries to have been unjustified in leaving his command." might read better.
  •  Done
• Borneo Campaign: Again perhaps betraying air force bias but I think the RAAF's contribution, primarily Australian First Tactical Air Force (renamed on October 1944 from No. 10 Operational Group RAAF, a formation you mentioned earlier), is worth noting.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• • I agree, especially as it may have been the RAAF's biggest single operation of the war, but am not sure how to work this in given that the RAAF (and USAAF and even USMC) supported all three landings - would an extra para on the role of the air forces (and navies?) in this section be a good way of handling this? Nick-D (talk) 02:51, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
    • If you're comfortable with a separate para it might be good, though it means adding length. Perhaps just explicitly mentioning the various main formations involved would work. In any case, support wasn't conditional on any of the above, so don't sweat it too much...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• Just a couple of comments...

I couldn't find a mention of the Coastwatchers in the article. Although not strictly Australian in organization and personnel, the organization was primarily led by members of the Australian military and many of its personnel were from Australia. The Coastwatcher organization was key to the Allied success on Guadalcanal and the rest of the Solomons and provided significant contributions in New Guinea.

Although the major shift of Australia's military relationship from Britain to the US is mentioned, it doesn't really mention completely how and why that happened. If I understand right, Churchill decided to try to hold Singapore and Malaysia, even though they were obviously lost causes, for political/show reasons with the aim of preserving Britain's colonial empire in the future. Australia was not given a say in this decision and its forces helping defend the Malay peninsula were therefore sent into three years of Japanese captivity for no apparent benefit as to the defense of Australia. Once the West Indies and Singapore were gone, Britain suddenly was no longer willing to have anything to do with defending Australia, thus forcing Australia to shift its main military relationship to the United States. Do I have that right as to in essence the way it really happened? Cla68 (talk) 02:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• • There was a brief mention of coastwatchers in the 'Intelligence and special forces' section and I've just added a sentence on them to the 'Netherlands East Indies and Rabaul' section. As this article is focused on military history, I've tried to keep out of the diplomatic history of Australia during the war, especially as it was rather complex and confused and continues to be a bit controversial (for instance, there's an ongoing debate over Britain's actions and motivations in 1942 and its return to the Pacific in 1944-45). Your post is a good summary of one of the schools of thought, but unfortunetly there are several others, and it's probably impossible to cover them in a satisfactory way in this article without going into undue length. There's plenty of scope for a Diplomatic history of Australia during World War II article. Nick-D (talk) 03:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. I couldn't find any MoS issues and I believe the article completely and effectively covers the subject. Great work. Cla68 (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments.

• There are three maps of the Pacific Theatre, but there are no maps of the North African/Mediterranean theatre.
  •  Done I just added four maps and most Australian operations of the war are now illustrated by a map - that was an excellent point. The article is starting to look a bit crowded with images on my unusually large (24") monitor, but I suspect that it will look OK on normal sized monitors.
• I think the link to "mass migration" should be changed to the more specific link "Post war immigration to Australia". Lawrencema (talk) 05:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  •  Done Nick-D (talk) 06:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.