Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Battle of Arawe

Battle of Arawe
This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Today's featured article/requests. 
 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page. 

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/December 15, 2013 by BencherliteTalk 09:01, 5 December 2013‎ (UTC)



The Battle of Arawe was fought between Allied and Japanese forces during the New Britain Campaign of World War II. The battle was initiated by the Allies to divert Japanese attention away from the Cape Gloucester area of New Britain ahead of a major offensive there in late December 1943. A force built around the United States Army's 112th Cavalry Regimental Combat Team landed at Arawe on 15 December 1943 and rapidly overcame the area's small garrison. Japanese air units made large-scale raids against the Arawe area in the days after the landing, and in late December elements of two Imperial Japanese Army battalions unsuccessfully counter-attacked the larger American force. In mid-January 1944 the 112th Cavalry Regimental Combat Team was reinforced with additional infantry and United States Marine Corps tanks and launched a brief offensive that pushed the Japanese back. The Japanese units at Arawe withdrew from the area towards the end of February as part of a general retreat from western New Britain. There is no consensus among historians on whether the Allied landing at Arawe was needed, with some arguing that it provided a useful diversion while others judge that it formed part of an unnecessary campaign.

15 December 2013 will be the 70th anniversary of the start of the battle (2 points), and the article has been a FA since March 2012 (1 point). I don't think that there's been a TFA on a battle for a while (though I have been travelling and not checking Wikipedia often), so there may also be a potential extra point. I'm obviously biased, but I think that the article provides an interesting account of this battle, and illustrates the complexity of even fairly small engagements of the Pacific War, as well as the extent to which the Allies had the edge over the Japanese by this stage of the conflict. Nick-D (talk) 00:58, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Support I think the last battle was the Battle of Goliad on 24 October. Strangely, it was scheduled just three days after the Battle of the Nile on 21 October. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:22, 30 November 2013 (UTC)