Talk:HMS Gloucester (62)

Survivors
There seems to be an element of confusion between sources as to the number of survivors of the sinking. The BBC article and Ken Otter's HMS Gloucester The Untold Story (2001) are in broad agreement, with the BBC stating "only 84 of the cruiser's crew survived in the water until the next day" while Ken Otter has "only 85 men... survived when the ship was destroyed" and "Only 83 survived to come home at the end of the war". However other sources, like David A Thomas' Crete 1941 the battle at sea (1972), state that "Germans had rescued more than 500 Gloucester men". Ken Otter suggests this discrepancy is caused by some researchers taking speculation of contemporary sources as fact. A letter from Admiral Cunningham in July 1941 states, "I have not heard one word about any of the Gloucesters ship's company though there is a rumour, that the Germans broadcast, that 75% of them had been rescued". I would suggest that future editors should be a little cautious if they come across another source with the 500 survivors claim. Road Wizard (talk) 18:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

HMAS Stuart
I have removed the following statement from the article:
 * It's reported that HMAS Stuart had been detached to search for survivors but had failed to find any.

I couldn't find any supporting evidence for the statement beyond the single source listed, so I made an effort to obtain a copy of Scrap Iron Destroyers; The story of H.M.A. ships Stuart, Vampire, Vendetta, Voyager and Waterhen (ISBN 0909153043). The book makes it clear that Stuart, Vendetta and Voyager were ordered to pick up survivors from the Fiji, which they were unable to locate. There is no mention of any orders to search for the Gloucester. Road Wizard (talk) 17:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

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Removed reference
I have removed a reference to "Shores 1987a, pp. 357–58" from the Sinking section. The text it was linked to was contradicted by several other sources, published both before and after Shores. Unfortunately I don't have access to Shores, so I can't reflect the source material in the article. If Shores has contradicted the other sources, this will need to be handled carefully in the article. For example, relevant text may be introduced with, "However, Shores (1987), states that (this other thing actually happened)." From Hill To Shore (talk) 13:00, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The problem is that Cunningham is virtually a primary source, written without access to much German or Italian material and can only be used very carefully. I don't have time to get into this now to try and reconcile the sources, but obviously more work is needed. I do remember that even the sources that I used often differed in the amount of detail that they offered and I had to prevent the reader from getting bogged down into extraneous detail by skimming over certain things.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:08, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, Cunningham would definitely be considered a primary source as someone directly involved in the situation but also as someone writing within 3 months of the battle. You are right that primary sources have to be treated carefully, but as stated in WP:PRIMARY they can be useful so long as usage is limited to statement of fact on their content and no secondary interpretation is applied. In my recent edits I have been careful with using Cunningham, making sure that there is at least one secondary source that supports his statements before inclusion; I think all the instances where I have used him have been paired with another source.
 * The removal of the Shores text was not directly related to Cunningham. As shown in my edit, the text removed related to a claim that Greyhound was attacked together with Gloucester and Fiji (when all other sources state they were despatched after Greyhound had started sinking) and the two cruisers were hit by two 250kg bombs (I couldn't corroborate the bomb size from my own sources). The Shores reference was included mid-sentence next to the claim that Gloucester was attacked "immediately," so whether Shores was meant to also cover the Greyhound and 250kg claims wasn't particulary clear (the use of "immediately" is also misleading as the whole of Force A1 had been coming under intermittent attack since 09:00 and that only intensified as the group entered the Kythira Straight after 12:25.
 * Since my edit I managed to find an ebook of Shores 1987a. Unfortunately it doesn't look particularly reliable:
 * It says that Rawlings received the request to support Force C at 13:12. While other sources agree that there was a request at this time, it was at least the third communication and Rawlings was already closing in. This presents Shores as either accidentally or deliberately summarising the situation in a slightly misleading way.
 * It does state that both Gloucester and Fiji were hit by 250kg bombs but is unclear on timing; the placing in the text implies it was between 13:12 and the sinking of Greyhound but I have yet to find another source that mentions these hits. Hits on Gloucester and Fiji are supported by other sources at different times of the day but I can't find mention of bomb size in those.
 * Gloucester is described as sinking within "minutes" of Greyhound rather than the other sources that place this around two hours later.
 * It states that 500 survivors of Gloucester were rescued by the Italians and Germans. This is a clear error; as noted in the section on Survivors above (8 June 2008). Shores cites the work mentioned above (D A Thomas, Crete 1941) so has replicated the same error. This raises the question of how much of this section Shores was able to verify.
 * As this is a secondary source, we can reflect it in the text if editors desire, but we would need to be clear on the disagreement with other sources.
 * In terms of detail, I think there is the potential to build a more substantial article over time, though this isn't my immediate priority in life. Probably the key weakness of the article at the moment is that it relies too heavily on primary (Cunningham & Walker), self published (Chanter) or potentially biased sources (while Otter is the most definitive work on the subject, the author was related to the crew, meaning it isn't quite as independent a source as we would normally like). A secondary weakness of the article is that it brushes over too many topics; we have only four paragraphs of text to cover the life of the ship from 1936 to the end of 1940. My long term goal would be to push this to Featured status but I'm in no hurry; I'll keep popping back here every so often to push it a few steps further along. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:17, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Shores is mostly concerned with the aerial operations and is most reliable for those sorts of details. We'll have to dig deeper into the other issues and see what other sources have to offer on the minutiae of the actions off Crete. I agree that the prewar material is the weakest and can use a major upgrade, but I don't want to have an endless cycle of port visits and training exercises either. It's quite possible that she really didn't do much of note during this time. I'll have to go back through Otter and see what the ship was up to, if anything interesting. I'm not at all adverse to eventually taking this to FA, but I think that we should discuss proposed changes here first.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:42, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm always happy to discuss topics with other editors but I'm more an adherent of Be bold. If I make a bold edit and everyone is happy with it then everything is fine. If the edit gets reverted then I will start a conversation to find the source of the problem. Example from when I was still editing from IP addresses. My editing pattern is a little sporadic because of personal commitments; I can spend a few days on an intense burst of edits but then disappear for months or years. Often the editors I was working with previously have either lost interest in a topic or have left the project; being bold is usually the only practical solution. From Hill To Shore (talk) 00:13, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Fair enough.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:20, 8 December 2019 (UTC)