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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Operation Pamphlet

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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 by Nikkimaria (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 12:06, 7 May 2015 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Operation Pamphlet edit

Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk)

Operation Pamphlet (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Operation Pamphlet was an convoy operation of World War II in which the veteran Australian 9th Division was transported home from Egypt. The operation had an unusual precursor, in which Churchill and FDR argued with Australian Prime Minister Curtin and (by proxy) General MacArthur over whether the division should be returned. After Curtin won this argument (largely by default), the troops were packed into four of the famous converted "monster" ocean liners and transported home. The Australian Government was greatly concerned about their safety and, in line with standard doctrine, the convoy was escorted by powerful naval forces, including the main body of the British Eastern Fleet for a period. Happily, it was not detected or attacked by the Axis, and arrived safely in Australia in late February 1943.

I started this article last year after stumbling on a surprising number of references concerning the operation, and it reached GA class in November. It's since been expanded and copy edited and I'm hopeful that it is of A-class standard. Thanks in advance for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 11:10, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "subsequently": same as last time. One was redundant after I moved things around; the other two mean "soon" or "later" or variations thereof, and I can't tell which.
  • "United States": I reduced this in a few places, as I often do, to US, U.S., American, or nothing, depending on context. There are conflicting opinions and some confusion. The bottom line is that frequent use of "United States" as an adjective sounds wrong to most people, in and outside the US, and influential US style guides (such as Chicago and AP stylebook) reflect this. No one, AFAIK, has a problem with saying "United States" at first mention or occasionally, in any context, but especially in formal contexts; thus WP:ARTCON. It won't bother me if you want to revert some of my edits back to "United States", but please don't revert all of them.
    • Thanks Dank, that looks better. Nick-D (talk) 00:09, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I read Maughan to say that the cable from Churchill about retaining the Australian forces' heavy equipment probably came in November. The text currently says "On 21 November, the commander of the 9th Division, Major General Leslie Morshead, was informed by General Harold Alexander, the commander-in-chief of the Middle East Command, that a decision had been made to return the division to Australia. However, Churchill subsequently informed the Australian Government that due to a shortage of shipping the 9th Division would not be permitted to take its heavy equipment ...". I can't support a blanket prohibition on "however" at the start of a sentence, as some Wikipedian copyeditors do; it seems like a reasonable way to start some paragraphs. But that's the point ... it signals a break, a change of direction, and often, quick jumps aren't the best way to minimize a reader's memory load. Better here, I think (with slightly less detail, if that works for you), would be "In November, the commander of the 9th Division, Major General Leslie Morshead, was informed by General Harold Alexander, the commander-in-chief of the Middle East Command, that the division would return to Australia, though Churchill added that their heavy equipment was to remain behind." (I read Maughan to say that the heavy equipment was staying not just because they were going to have a hard time shipping it, but because they wanted to keep the equipment.) - Dank (push to talk) 22:21, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's a good point: I've tweaked this para to make it a bit clearer Nick-D (talk) 00:11, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. The changes are acceptable, for A-class and FAC. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 02:55, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  • I copyedited this after its GA review and am satisfied with info/prose changes made since then.
  • Structure and level of detail look good to me, sources/citations likewise.
  • Image-wise, suggest all could use PD-1996 (as the Preparation one does already).

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:48, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments Ian Nick-D (talk) 05:42, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Comments

  • I'd never heard this codename. It is much less well-known than Operation Stepsister (which has no article).
  • I'd be interested in Dank's opinion on whether "the maximum which Queen of Bermuda could maintain" should be "the maximum that Queen of Bermuda could maintain". I get confused about this.
    • Butting in, I think it should be "that", now you mention it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:49, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is no use of Hasluck's account in The Government and the People 1942–1945 pp. 193-203, which is odd. There are some bits that could be elaborated on to more fully explain the background of the operation. I think that most of the reader interest in the operation would be more on the reasons why than the operation itself, which is well done in any case.
    Hasluck notes the reasons:

    There were, however, many reasons besides any danger to Australia behind the recall of the 9th . There was the need to relieve the burden placed on the 6th and 7th in New Guinea, allied with insufficient military faith in the militia ; the old principle that the Australian Army should fight as one army under one commander ; the difficulty of maintaining reinforcements for a division overseas ; the ambition to strengthen the South-West Pacific Command for an eventual offensive ; the political difficulty of extending the area in which the militia could serve (owing to Labor objections to what was termed conscription) so long as there was still a volunteer expeditionary force in an overseas theatre; the"psychological" effect of absence on the men of the 9th. (p.193)

    • Whoops! I'd actually bookmarked the relevant section of my copy of The Government and the People, but then must have forgotten about it! I'll add some stuff in. I'd rather stay clear of his blow by blow account of the foreign policy manoeuvring, but there's certainly more I need to add; his description of why the division was wanted in Australia is well presented. Nick-D (talk) 11:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • (As a note, I will get up to this later in the week: I've had limited editing time this weekend) Nick-D (talk) 11:27, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the reader might get the impression that the return was MacArthur's idea. It actually stemmed from Blamey's proposed restructuring of the Army in September 1942
  • The target date for Lae-Salamaua was May 1943. (This slipped to September.) But all the five available US (32nd, 41st, 1st Marine) and AIF (6th, 7th) took heavy casualties in Papua and Guadalcanal. Also, in November 1942, faith in the Militia and the US divisions was at a low ebb.
  • The plan to send the US 25th Division to Australia was aborted, and it was diverted to Guadalcanal. This would probably have been in MacArthur's mind. The US 24th and 1st Cavalry Divisions were earmarked, but neither arrived until the second half of the year
  • Not all of the promised air reinforcements eventuated either; I don't think that the RAAF ever reached 75 squadrons.
    • Butting in II, actually the article says 73, not 75. No it didn't quite reach that but it came close (70 or so in all I think) so I wouldn't have thought elaboration was necessary in this case, FWIW. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:49, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      The article is correct; it was 73 squadrons. I'm not sure it is worth mentioning; but the 1943 allocation of aircraft to SWPA meant that the RAAF was limited to 45 squadrons in 1943. (p. 212) Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:30, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:44, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Nick-D and Hawkeye7: Just considering listing this on the coord talk page for closure (though I can't promote myself) -- been very quiet here so wondering if there's anything still outstanding from the above? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:11, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Ian - I need to add some stuff from Hasluck (which has been delayed). I'll try to do this tonight. Nick-D (talk) 08:18, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, done. Thanks for suggesting this Hawkeye; hopefully it does the trick without getting into the blow-by-blow details of the diplomatic dispute around the division's return to Australia. Nick-D (talk) 11:43, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support
    • No dab links (no action req'd).
    • No issues with external links (no action req'd).
    • All images have alt text (no action req'd).
    • No duplicate links (no action req'd).
    • Images are PD and appear to have the req'd info (no action req'd).
    • Captions looks fine (no action req'd).
    • The Citation Check Tool reveals no issues with ref consolidation (no action req'd).
    • Some minor inconsistency in the presentation of the location of a couple of the publishers in the references section. Specifically some you give as "Canberra" others as "Canberra, Australian Capital Territory".
    • Some minor inconsistency in presentation of editions for instance "1st ed" vs "Third revised ed" i.e. numerals vs spelt in full (minor nitpick).
    • "During 1940 and 1941, three infantry divisions and other units assigned to I Corps of the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) were transported to the Middle East..." I wonder if an explanation as to what they were doing there is needed for context for readers not more well acquainted with the topic. For instance "During 1940 and 1941, three infantry divisions and other units assigned to I Corps of the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) were transported to the Middle East, where they were subsequently involved in fighting German and Italian forces..." or something like that. It is of course implied but it might be helpful (suggestion only).
    • I made a few minor MOS edits and added an OCLC, pls see my changes here [1] and amend as req'd if I got anything wrong.
    • Otherwise I found the article to be well written, flowed logically, was concise yet covered the topic well, and provided some very interesting insights (e.g. Curtin's concern for the convoy etc). Well done in my opinion. Anotherclown (talk) 23:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks a lot for your edits and review Nick-D (talk) 08:54, 11 April 2015 (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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