Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/First engagement of neutral United States in World War II before the attack on Pearl Harbor


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Liz Read! Talk! 07:31, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

First engagement of neutral United States in World War II before the attack on Pearl Harbor

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This is a poorly referenced WP:OR essay/list which fails WP:GNG as an article and WP:NLIST as a list. It doesn't cite a single source on the stated topic and is just a list of events, many unreferenced or referenced to general works or unreliable websites (like the claim about American first casualties, referenced to uboat.net. IF there is a notable topic here (and that's not shown with sources at all), it would need to be started from scratch (WP:TNT). The only WP:ATD I can think of is redirecting this mess to Military_history_of_the_United_States_during_World_War_II, where this topic is described in prose and with better sourcing. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:02, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Military, Lists,  and United States of America. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  12:02, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom and the whopper "They [scholars] disagree on which events led to formal entry of the United States into the conflict." Must be young pre-scholars because nobody with even half a brain would consider this claim anything but utterly ridiculous. No events before December 7 had any significant effect on the general public's strong preference for neutrality. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:44, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * SNOW Speedy Delete as it’s nearly incomprehensible what this indiscriminate mess is supposed to be about, and also basically promoting false/fringe information (that the US was engaged in WW2 before Pearl Harbor) Dronebogus (talk) 12:48, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Not entirely false. The US Navy and German U-boats did engage in combat before the US officially entered the war. Clarityfiend (talk) 12:54, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes but you get what I mean, it’s promoting a very, very dubious case based on bogus claims of “scholarly debate”. Also note that this was made by an account with less than 600 edits. Dronebogus (talk) 12:58, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. This list makes an arbitrary start date of 1932 for the "conflict" but the US military had several operations in the 1910s and 1920s. I see no point in keeping what's an OR synthesis. Oaktree b (talk) 19:35, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor.  D r e a m Focus  22:41, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Not a remotely plausible redirect. Dronebogus (talk) 08:19, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom, an OR mess of individual incidents that add up to nothing supported by credible scholarship. Mztourist (talk) 03:28, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete Mainly WP:OR. Can't find a proper target where it could be redirected. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 11:45, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete as WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. All the sources in this article are to support the individual events listed (and at least a few of these sources look of dubious reliability). In order for this article to pass WP:GNG there must be multiple reliable sources which discuss the topic of when/whether the US entered WWII pre-Pearl Harbour; without these, there is no reason to collect these events into a single article. I'd also oppose a redirect since this is not a plausible search term. WJ94 (talk) 18:12, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Utterly pointless. Intothatdarkness 15:04, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete Agreed that much of this is OR. Information here can be integrated into other pertinent articles if it isn't already there. A redirect would not be helpful. Royal Autumn Crest (talk) 21:13, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete as WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Half the list pre-dates the start of the European theatre of war. Equine-man (talk) 09:09, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Is this our first article on the previously unrecognized World War 1.5? Dronebogus (talk) 17:17, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom etc -- Devoke water  19:54, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:TNT. There's a way to write an article about the general topic of U.S. actions relating to WWII prior to Pearl Harbor (the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s and the Lend-Lease Act come to mind), but there is nothing useful in the text of the article. —  Red-tailed hawk (nest) 22:22, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.