Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Hel

Article promoted by Kges1901 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 10:20, 8 June 2020 (UTC) &laquo; Return to A-Class review list

Battle of Hel
Instructions for nominators and reviewers
 * Nominator(s): 

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it passed GA recently, is relatively short but I believe comprehensive, well written and referenced. Please let me know what could be further improved. TIA. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:41, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Comment Support by CPA-5
Hey Piotrus, I'm happy to see you nominating this article. Before I'll start I just wanna say the lead needs to summerise the whole article (the "Prelude", the "Aftermath" and the most important information about the battle need to be added in short and not too detailed) - see WP:LEAD. This is my responsibility because I didn't realise this was a thing here in Wikipedia before I passed the GAN, my apology. I'll continue after you solved this issue. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 20:01, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've expanded the lead a bit. Is it sufficient? I don't see anything else right now that doesn't seem like undue detail for the lead, but I am open to suggestions. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:56, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Update: I don't really have the time to continue this. 'Cause of our lockdown, school and real life issues I won't be that much online for a week or longer. :/ Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 22:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The Battle of Hel was a World War II engagement What's the Polish name of the battle?
 * Added the name from pl wiki. Mind you, it's not like this is universally accepted - ex. the main source cited just states "Hel (dates)". --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * historiography as the September Campaign Decapitalise campaign.
 * But it is a historiographical proper term, see Polish September Campaign. The very commonly accepted Polish name for the German invasion of Poland. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I believe in 2019 MILHIST decided to scrap the rule of capitalising campaigns even if it is part of the proper noun. Look at these links if you have some time to read and . The article of the September campaign does not capitalise it.


 * Are there links for those guns in the "Prelude" section?
 * Ooo, nice idea. But I couldn't find the specific models mentioned in the sources. I can't find any link for Polish 152mm, just Soviet. 105mm could be Canon de 105 mle 1913 Schneider. The 75mm AA is probably 75 mm armata wz.36 the 40mm Bofors 40 mm gun and the 37mm, Bofors 37 mm anti-tank gun, but can we link it based on our assumption (OR?), with no source confirming this is the right model?
 * If we are not sure what kinda guns we are talking about then I rather not link them to any guns.


 * sixty two machine guns Are these figures meant to be 60 2 or 62? If the is the later one then we need a hyphen between the two figures if not then change the two into a 2?
 * 62, hyphen added. I was asked earlier (below) to convert 62 to words. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Rear Admiral is overlinked.
 * As were a few more words, I thought I checked for this before, but I guess links were reintroduced later. Anyway, fixed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The second air raid, the same day at 18:00 I think we need an "at" before the second "the".
 * I'll ping User:Nihil novi, as I am not a native English speaker, but the sentence reads ok to me? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * damaging the Polish light minelayer Mewa Add "ORP" before her mention. Same with the rest of the ships.
 * Done. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * On 3 September 1939, the Polish destroyer Wicher Remove the year and the month and make the day an ordinal and add an article before the date.
 * I removed the year as unnecessary, I am bit confused what exactly is needed, second ping to Nihil novi here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * engagement of the September Campaign --> "engagement of the September campaign"
 * Per above, historiographical term I belive should be capitalized.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here
 * operational in the theater.[12][5]c re-order the refs here.
 * Link German Army.
 * Done.
 * On the night of 12–13 September 1939 --> "On the night of 12/13 September 1939"
 * Done. How about '12 to 13'?
 * Per MOS:DATETOPRES we should use "12/13 September" at night events.


 * Baltic Sea is overlinked.
 * Done.
 * the Hel Peninsula by 2 October 1939 Year is not needed.
 * Done.
 * v After Hel's surrender Typo v?
 * Fixed.
 * D note needs a citation?
 * The first sentence ("It is unclear whether these estimates...") is my editorializing, hopefully, allowed. The problem is that it is unclear if the casualties count the sailors. The issue is just not addressed, nobody presents at able breakdown, etc. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Ceasefire orders were issued Per Ngram.
 * I'd suggest moving the article first from Ceasefire to Cease-fire to avoid redirect pipe. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd better not to move the article to "ceasefire", 'cause, cease-fire is declining in Ngram and ceasefire took the spot. However right now the numbers are almost the same but it's possible that cease-fire has declined more in recent years.

I think that's it. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 15:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC) abbreviated and should stay like that shouldn't have a hyphen. The rest looks pretty good. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 14:00, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Let me know which issues are outstanding after this pass. Thanks! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * In both the "Prelude" and the "Battle" sections there are figures and metric units who are separate with a hyphen. The hyphen should only be used in a compound adjective. Per MOS:UNITSYMBOLS units who are
 * and outnumbered by about 10 to 1 Maybe change these to ten and one?
 * week of September, the German Army German Army is a MOS:EGG.
 * All done, I hope. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 00:44, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * G'day this looks GTG, but I wondered if you were happy with the responses and wanted to add your support for completeness? Peacemaker67  (click to talk to me) 02:43, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * On my way sir PM. I've made some small edits here. It now looks good to go. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 07:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Comments by Buidhe
 * Short and choppy paragraphs throughout—could I persuade you to combine some of them?
 * These sources look really dodgy: and  b<b style="color: White">uidh</b><b style="color: White">e</b> 05:30, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Regarding combining sentences I'll ping User:Nihil novi, who may catch what I didn't, through I think he already did c/e of this article previously. Regarding the Facta Nautica, I'll ping User:Nigel Ish, who wrote about SMS M85 and who may have access to better sources to replace this, if this is indeed deemed unreliable. Regarding the last, I was simply unable to find any more reliable source for the uncontroversial, I think, statement, that some of the former fortifications still survive. It is a tourist website, and I think it can be considered acceptable for such a simple statement. All other sources on this are similar, ex. (article on Internet portal onet.pl that dabbles in mid-quality journalism), or  (ditto on interia.pl). Think they are better? --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  09:03, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Don't wanna disturb this but I should note the first source was made by Piotr Mierzejewski who has a degree on paleobiology - see this. Why he made this I have no idea this is nothing about his job. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 16:42, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the Facta_Nautica cite with one from Haarr, which has the advantage of already being used in the article.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi, Was this an ACR-level source review? And if so, what is your view on the changes? Cheers. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Not a formal source review, or I would have marked it as such. <b style="color: White">b</b><b style="color: White">uidh</b><b style="color: White">e</b> 16:43, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Image review - pass

 * The map and the image of the AA gun create a MOS:SANDWICH. Perhaps drop the latter down a little.
 * Consider adding a location map, so a reader can locate Hel within modern Poland. You could cut and paste the one from Hel, Poland.

Gog the Mild (talk) 11:39, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Good ideas, but 1) I am afraid it will sandwitch something else, I'd appreciate if you or someone else would move it to the best position and 2) I tried copying the code and it didn't work, and I couldn't find an example of a milhist tempalte with such a feature to copy the code. Help, anyone? --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:42, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I can't either. Ah well, it was just a thought. Passing. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:41, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It can be done with any infobox apparently, as with Hel, Poland, but only if both are push pin maps. Ah well. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:49, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It took a while but map has been added :) --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:09, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Support from Gog the Mild
I have done a little copy editing. Flag up anything you are not happy with.


 * Could we avoid having "battle" twice in the first ten words.
 * "comprised one battery of 4 152-mm (6.0-inch) guns, two older batteries of 2 105-mm (4.1-inch) guns, and three batteries of 8 75-mm (3.0-inch) guns The 2nd Naval Anti-aircraft Artillery Division [pl]'s anti-aircraft batteries were equipped with 6 75-mm and 8 40-mm (1.6-inch) guns, 17 machine guns,[2] and two 120-cm (47-inch) searchlights" Could you be consistent with numbers: when giving the numbers of weapons etc, either all should be spelt out - "Two" = or all given in figures - "4".
 * "The Coastal Artillery Division was 162 soldiers strong" Is that true? Or do you mean the detachment of it at Hel?
 * In the second paragraph pf "Battle" you state "with only three light minelayers remaining operational in the theater". In the fourth you list five; they were only reduced to three on 13 September.
 * "About 3,600 Polish soldiers were taken prisoner." Should that be 'soldiers and sailors'?

Gog the Mild (talk) 16:03, 29 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Nudge. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:30, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry for missing this. As far as I can tell, despite the name 'division', the Coastal Artillery Division was composed only of the elements stationed at Hel, and the source states it had 162 personnel. Godo catch about the three light minelayers; I chanted it to several light units as I think some support units might also have been operational at that time. Other issues should be all fixed. Thanks! --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:03, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * No problem.
 * That all looks good.
 * Supporting. Gog the Mild (talk) 03:39, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Comments Support by Zawed
That's it for me. Zawed (talk) 06:11, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Suggest amending the first sentence of the lead: "The Battle of Hel was an engagement of World War II ...fought from 1 September to 2 October 1939
 * The Invasion of Poland is linked twice (as pipe links) in the lead
 * "defended the Area from 1 September to 2 October 1939," : the length of the engagement is already stated in the first sentence of the lead. Suggest replacing this phrasing with the number of days, i.e "...defended the Area for 32 days,..."
 * In the prelude section, write out the smaller numbers, i.e ten or less? E.g. "comprised a single battery of four 152-mm (6.0-inch) guns,..."
 * Prelude: "Coastal Artillery Division [pl]'s"; suggest moving the [pl] to after the possessive, same for 2nd Naval Anti-aircraft Artillery Division
 * Prelude: Given the number of times it appears, perhaps consider introducing an abbreviation for Hel Fortified Area, e.g. HFA
 * Prelude: "...was 162 soldiers strong..." Strong is repeated in the following section of this sentence, suggest rephrasing at least the second mention, e.g. "...the 2nd Naval Anti-aircraft Artillery Division numbered 1,000 soldiers while..."
 * Prelude: "...the numerous German battleships." Is it overstating to refer to "numerous"? Nazi Germany only had a handful of battleships. I wonder if you mean that the coastal batteries posed no real threat to modern well-armoured ships?
 * Battle: Suggest combining the first two sentences and refer to the "opening day of the invasion" so that "first" is only used in respect of the "first air raid". And link invasion to Invasion of Poland.
 * Battle: "...of the September Campaign... The context of the term September Campaign is unclear. Maybe just refer to German invasion?
 * Battle: "A number of air raids targeted the Area;..." I suggest moving cites 6 and 7 to the end of the sentence rather than trying to put them right next to the casualty figures.
 * Battle: The cites in the paragraph discussing Commager can be consolidated, i.e. just one at the end. The same applies to the following paragraph discussing Komorowski's work. As an aside I like the way you contrasted the different accounts.
 * Aftermath: Suggest "3,600 Polish soldiers and sailors..." The battle section mentioned the crew of sunken vessels joining the initial 2,800 strong garrison so I assume the increase in numbers is due to the sailors. The refs in the first paragraph can be consolidated to the end as well.
 * Suggest combining some of the separate paragraphs in the aftermath section. Given their content, 1st and 2nd paras could be combined and also 4th and 5th paras combined as well.
 * , just checking you've seen my comments? Zawed (talk) 09:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I missed it, thanks for the ping. Mostly done; I don't know how to fix the code in the Template:Ill to produce the results you want (" moving the [pl] to after the possessive"). Please let me know if anything remains to be addressed. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 11:10, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to be too fussed over the possessive. Happy to support. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 10:18, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Support Comments from Parsecboy

 * Remove the unnecessary .0 from several of the conversions
 * "six 75-mm and eight 40-mm (1.6-inch) guns, 17 machine guns" -> "six 75-mm and eight 40-mm (1.6-inch) guns, seventeen machine guns" per the MoS
 * Ditto for "(four 75-mm, and six 37-mm), 62 machine guns"
 * Why do we have an in-depth order of battle for the Polish garrison but not for the German force? This is a serious scope/balance issue
 * "were engaged by two German destroyers" - passive voice
 * "as well as the Polish light minelayer Mewa" - we've already been introduced to what Mewa was and who operated the vessel
 * link gunboat, armored train
 * "targeted the Area" - why is this capitalized?
 * Move the link for capitulation to the first use of the term
 * "After Hel's capitulation...which capitulated after..." - capitulation twice in the same (overly long) sentence is repetitious. Switch one of them and split the sentence
 * Why do we have inconsistent citation styles? Some give page ranges in the footnote, and others use the abominable "[fn]:page number" format
 * Many sources lack complete citations; for example, Boje Polskie 1939–1945 has no author, location of publication, or year. Parsecboy (talk) 14:49, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the comments! I fixed all that were explicitly mentioned and that I understood (passive voice is a statement of fact...). Except: OOB - there are just no sources on the German one, at least I wasn't able to locate any. Area refers to the Hel Fortified Area, hence the capitalization. Please let me know what issues remain. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:42, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Active voice is generally preferred - an engagement is a mutual affair, so one could just as easily say the Polish vessels engaged the German ones. As for the area, yes, but just as one would refer to the Vistula River, if one simply says "he crossed the river", even if specifically referring to the Vistula, it would be lowercase. Parsecboy (talk) 12:01, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Roger, fixes made. How does it look now? --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here
 * Looks good. Most of the refs still need work; almost all of them still need locations, Derdej's book also needs an ISBN, and I noticed that some ISBNs are hyphenated and others aren't - if you're taking this to FAC at some point in the future, you'll want to standardize the formatting. Parsecboy (talk) 09:23, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I've added ISBN/location to Derdej book. Do you want me to add locations to other books? I think this is a totally useless piece of metadata... --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:17, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * For the purpose of identifying a source, yes, I agree that it's useless, but it's standard practice to include it in per any of the various citation style guides. Parsecboy (talk) 10:26, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Food for thought: Publisher locations are no longer included in APA Style references for books and book chapters. I doubt anyone will miss them, even the cited (official?) APA blog is rather clear on that :) --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:08, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough - either way, you should standardize one way or the other. Parsecboy (talk) 12:24, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 15:19, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm going to nitpick you to death (but hopefully it'll prevent someone else from doing it at FAC!) but you've got some US states spelled out and others abbreviated (for example: Boston, MA vs. Annapolis Maryland). Parsecboy (talk) 15:42, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Might as well. Thanks :) Done.--<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:44, 16 May 2020 (UTC)


 * It occurred to me to check the articles on SMS Schleswig-Holstein and SMS Schlesien, and the dates I have there don't exactly jive with the ones here - according to Schleswig-Holstein's article, that ship was present for bombardments of Hel and Redłowo between 7 and 13 September and then again from 25 to 27 September. And Schlesien's article has her only joining bombardment operations against Hel from 21 to 27 September. These details are sourced to Jurgen Rohwer's excellent Chronology of the War at Sea and Hildebrand et. al.'s Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe, both of whom I'd trust with the minute details of what ships were where and when far more than I'd trust a general history of the war like Commager. Parsecboy (talk) 15:33, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Nice finds, I've expanded the article a bit using the sources. The only problem is the ambiguity (Hel and Redłowo, Hel and Jastarnia) since each account conflates two different locations in a single timeframe. Granted, they are not far from one another if you look at the map (in fact Jastarnia is on Hel Pennisula), but I think Redlowo refers to the Battle of Kępa Oksywska or Battle of Gdynia. Frankly, the locations are so close I kind of wonder what the ships were doing if they were not there, or really, if they weren't shelling all those locations during the same days... -<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:55, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * They would have had to withdraw to refuel and replenish ammunition, and I imagine while off the coast, they were firing at whatever targets observers called in (I don't know what process the Germans used, but during bombardments in the Pacific, US battleships frequently used spotter aircraft to locate targets, observe the fall of shot, and send corrections to the gunners). But I doubt we're going to find a lot more detail than what we already have. I think we're in pretty good shape now. Nice work. Parsecboy (talk) 12:33, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Source review - pass
That's all I could find. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:28, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * can you provide a translation of Boje Polskie 1939–1945. Przewodnik Encyklopedyczny and Westerplatte, Oksywie, Hel 1939?
 * can you be consistent with the hyphenation of the isbns?
 * what makes www.naszbaltyk.com reliable?
 * where you have multiple authors, can you add |last-author-amp=yes to put a & between the last two authors?
 * fn 11 should start with the author name, not "(in Polish)"
 * the other sources seem fine, although I do not know much at all about Polish publishing houses.
 * All done (there is nothing to translate in Westerplatte, Oksywie, Hel 1939, this title is just place names and dates). I've added one more ref to back up NaszBaltyk. NB calls itself an online sea-themed magazine, published since 2012, has an ISSN number, is legally registered in Poland as a magazine, and its editorial team is non-anonymous, so I think it can be seen as RS for non-REDFLAG claims anyway. --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  04:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)