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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Battle of Porton Plantation

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Battle of Porton Plantation

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One of the six articles that I have written on Australian battles of the Bougainville Campaign. I am seeking feedback upon what this article needs in order to get it up to GA. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:44, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Intothatdarkness

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Comments: The lead is a bit wordy in spots. For example, "The Battle of Porton Plantation was a battle that took place on 8–10 June 1945 at Porton Plantation" could be simplified by removing "was a battle that". After all, the article title establishes that we're talking about a battle. Likewise "eventually" could be removed from the last sentence of the lead. Of course, these are stylistic points so they could be ignored if you like.

Background section - Is there a specific date that the Australian II Corps assumed responsibility for this area? Nov-Dec seems a bit generic. The first paragraph becomes somewhat confused with the long sentence describing the Australian plan of operations. Might it work to start with the southern arm, and then talk about the other two as supporting the main effort? The second paragraph has some issues as well. Cut the dash between "late" and "December" in the first sentence, and in the last sentence you could consider eliminating "in the fighting that followed." You've already established that there was combat on Tsimba Ridge, so don't need to repeat that.
Battle - Cut "however" from the third sentence. This is something of a run-on, and can be corrected by taking out 'however' and capitalizing 'they.' In the next sentence, consider changing "get off" to "get free." You might also want to break this sentence into two by cutting 'and' and capitalizing 'a.' In the second paragraph you could remove indirect from the fire support section, but that's again a style call. In the next paragraph you use "landed" twice (a double-tap on the word - "they had landed landed"). In the fourth paragraph you have a wandering "however" construct. Consider taking that out and making two sentences.
Aftermath - Consider a dash between under and resourced.
On the whole this looks to be a good article with nice sources. Tighten up the writing a bit and possibly see if there are any Japanese sources out there to provide a touch more depth (although this might not be possible).Intothatdarkness (talk) 16:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, thanks very much for the review. I've implemented most of the suggestions above. "Indirect" is necessary, I believe, though because the company did have some direct fire support, but no organic indirect fire support so losing the word "indirect" would change the meaning too much, I feel. Regarding Japanese sources, so far I haven't been able to find anything unfortunately. It seems like it might be too small an action to be covered. I will keep looking, though. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Newm30

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Wartime Issue 16, Summer 2001 has an article on the "Ordeal at Porton" by Donald Lawie "Australians on Bougainville in 1945". Do we know what the full name of the Japanese commander is (Was it Captain Erikichl Kato sentenced to death at the Rabaul War Crimes Court)? Should the 26th Battalion be listed in the Units involved due to their actions attempting to break through to the cut off units? Newm30 (talk) 02:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Newm30, thanks for this. So far I haven't been able to confirm Kato's name at all. You might be right with it being Erikichl. Is that contained in the Wartime source? (If not, do you know of any sources that might cover it?) I will have to see if I can hunt the Wartime article down, I hadn't found that in my research yet. The sources seem to treat the actions on the periphery (i.e 26th Battalion) as seperate to this battle (e.g. the figure of 190 men taking part is just Downs' 'A' Company Group) - as they were fighting around Ratsua, which is in itself treated as a separate battle. I guess, in theory they could be listed in the infobox, along with 4th Field Regiment, but I guess I'm just a little concerned about where we draw the line. There were quite a few units supporting, so should they all be in the infobox? Do you have any strong opinions either way? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:08, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have found this: [1]. This says Captain Eikichi Kato was convicted of a war crime in North Bougainville, so that may be the Kato we are looking for. Not sure if it is conclusive evidence, though, unfortunately. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've also found this: [2]. This confirms that the senior naval officer at Buka (Kato) was convicted of war crimes in the same circumstances as that listed in the law report above. As such I'd say that "Captain Kato" is "Eikichi Kato". Thanks for this information, Newm30. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've got the Wartime reference and have used that to add in a few more details. Thanks once again for pointing me towards that. Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problems, glad you could find evidence that confirms Captain Eikichi Kato as the officer in charge. I will leave it to your discretion as to include the rest of 31st/51st Battalion and the 26th Battalion who tried in vain to reach the cut off 'A' Company Group. Regards Newm30 (talk) 23:55, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thanks for creating an entry for Kato, I appreciate it. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 05:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P. S. Burton

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Try mentioning that Bougainville is situated in the Salomon Island archpelago or New Guinea in the lead, to give the reader more context. Not many people know where Bougainville is, and it is destracting to have to click on the link in the lead to find out. P. S. Burton (talk) 17:05, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for the review. Good idea; I've added this in now. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nick-D

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It's great to see so much work done on articles concerning this little-known campaign. This is a very high quality article, and my suggestions for further improvements are:

  • "an attempt to outflank the Japanese positions on the Ratsua front, which were being held by the 26th Battalion and the 31st/51st Battalion from the Australian 11th Brigade" - this is a bit confusing - surely the main force holding positions was the Japanese, while the two Australian battalions were trying to evict them from these positions. The name of the Japanese unit should be mentioned here (if possible)
    • I've tweaked the wording a bit, but I'll have to go back through the article again after I've finished reading the Karl James source fully. Regarding the Japanese forces, so far I've only found mention of the 87th Naval Garrison Force. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article is heavily focused on the Australian experience of this battle - can more be said about the Japanese experience?
    • So far I've found nothing focusing on a Japanese perspective, unfortunately. Even Tanaka (which served me well on the Sattelberg article) seems to disregard this battle. I'll keep looking and maybe the James work you list below might help. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "By nightfall it was believed that there were 300 Japanese" - believed by whom?
  • The discussion of the battle's casualties is a bit confusing - unless there's reason to doubt the accuracy of the Australian and Japanese army's own casualty reports, they don't need to be qualified with the other side's estimates (it seems particularly unnecessary to say that the Japanese records 'assert' a number of Japanese casualties). I'd suggest reorganising this material so it presents each Army's recorded casualties and then presents the estimates each Army made of the others casualties (it seems to have been common for estimates of enemy casualties in jungle warfare to have been way off the mark, which is hardly surprising given the nature of this kind of fighting)
  • Karl James' PhD thesis on the Bougainville Campaign covers this battle in some detail and is available online here. Karl James is currently one of the historians at the Australian War Memorial's military history section and I've read that he's working on turning the thesis into a book, so it's definitely a reliable and worthwhile source.
  • The June 1945 section of the 31st/51st Bn's war diary on the AWM website includes a couple of useful-looking maps on pages 165 and 166. Nick-D (talk) 01:23, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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