Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Bombing of Singapore (1944–45)


 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.  No further edits should be made to this discussion.


 * Promoted -MBK004 07:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Bombing of Singapore (1944–1945)

 * Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk)

I've been working on this article on a series of Allied air raids on Japanese-occupied Singapore during 1945 and 1945 and think that it may now meet the A class criteria. I'm seriously thinking of taking this to featured article status, so comments on how the article could be further improved (and edits to the article, of course!) would be very welcome. Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 11:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Technical stuff:
 * No dab links, external links look fine, and alt text is present.
 * Images look fine, license-wise.
 * Parsecboy (talk) 13:00, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that Nick-D (talk) 22:38, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Comments:
 * in the Background section, "surrendered to the Japanese on 15 February following..." should probably have the year inserted into the date;
 * Good catch, done
 * in the Background section you have "they they" in the second paragraph, I wasn't exactly sure what word you wanted to include here, so I didn't tweak it, but the typo needs to be dealt with;
 * Fixed
 * in the intial attack section "1000 pound bombs" I think should be "1,000 pound bombs" for consistency of style as you have "20,000 feet";
 * Done
 * in the initial attack section, I think this "rendering it serviceable for three months" should be "rendering it unservicable..."
 * Yikes! Good catch. I blame my spell checker for that howler ;)
 * in the Later conventional raids section, this sentence is a little awkward: "On 7 March the attack the newspaper Syonan Shimbun reported that 396 people had been made homeless by the raid";
 * Tweaked - what do you think?
 * Yes, that looks fine. AustralianRupert (talk) 11:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * the ribbon template can be collapsed if you want by adding "|state=collapsed" to the tag in edit mode (I think it would look better that way, but it is just a suggestion). AustralianRupert (talk) 09:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Done - I was trying to remember how to do that. Thanks for those comments and changes to the article Nick-D (talk) 10:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No worries. Looks quite good. Well done. AustralianRupert (talk) 11:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support: all my concerns have been addressed. AustralianRupert (talk) 11:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment—A1, citation presentation quality: Looks great! Fifelfoo (talk) 09:40, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Books in Series: Kirby, S. Woodburn (1965). is a book in series, and ought to be consistently cited against the books in series Cate, James Lea (1953); Chilstrom, John S. (1993); Royal Navy (1995); Royal Navy (1995a); Royal Navy (1995b). Consider renaming Royal Navy (1995) (1995a) (1995b) to (1995a) (1995b) (1995c).
 * Done


 * Place identifiers for uncommon places of publication: Mann, Robert A. (2009); Chilstrom, John S. (1993) fail to identify US state or Country of Origin. (Annapolis and Denton, are "gimmies" due to obvious locations of institutions, Chicago and London etc. need no identification unless it is a Chicago other than expected!)
 * Done


 * Short citations: Hack and (2004) is misidentified, Hack and Blackburn (2004)?
 * Good catch - fixed


 * Murfett, Malcolm H.; et al. : 3 or fewer authors? Have you considered using the English "and others"?  I suggest this because of a style towards de-Latinisation in some quarters.
 * I'm reluctant to do that as 'et al.' was still the recommendation in the style guides I consulted last year when I went back to university.


 * Very pleased with general quality of citation presentation. After a year away Milhist just gets better. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:16, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 08:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Support -- straightforward, properly detailed/cited, well written. I dealt with a few little things that might have come up at FAC, so I don't see any major issues with taking it to the next level. One minor suggestion is to add a picture of a XX Command B-29 if available, for context. Anyway, well done! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:06, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Ian, I'll see if I can find a good photo of XX Bomber Command B-29s (which is surprisingly hard!) Nick-D (talk) 08:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Comments - From the top
 * Infobox and Lead
 * Do we know the types of the ships that were sunk?
 * Unfortunately not
 * Given the length of the article, the lead could possibly be expanded a bit.
 * I've added a bit on the limited civilian casualties. However, I'm not great at writing leads, and a fresh pair of eyes on them really helps - could you please suggest anything to be included?
 * I've rethought this one out. I took a crack at it but couldn't expand it. Should be fine for now.
 * The first para of the lead mentions that after the USAAF shifted operations the RAF continued minelaying operations. Was the RAF doing minelaying while the USAAF was doing bombings as well?
 * The wording was unclear here - thanks for highlighting it. The RAF took over when the USAAF moved on; I've clarified this.
 * Background
 * last sentence, first para, get rid of that comma.
 * Done
 * There's a few cases of citations in the middle of sentences. Move them to after commas or periods.
 * Done
 * This section could benefit from a light copyedit.
 * Done (I think! - any further changes would be most welcome)
 * Raids: Initial Attacks
 * The section mentions that a drydock couldn't be used to repair Japanese battleships damaged at Leyte Gulf. Was this the event that led to the decision to withdraw Yamato, Nagato, Haruna and Kongo to the home islands? If so you should probably mention it, since it was a fairly large operation and if this influenced that decision that's fairly significant
 * I don't think so, and this isn't stated in any of the sources I could find. From memory, I think that those ships were returned to the home islands once the Japanese realised that the US had completely cut off merchant shipping between South East Asia and Japan and there were no benefits to be gained from stationing heavy fleet units in South East Asia as a result. As a side note, I was interested in writing an article on the operation in which the battleships were withdrawn to Japan a while ago but couldn't find any detailed sources - do you know of any?
 * I know of a couple here and there that could probably be useful. When I'm done w/ class today I'll raid Carleton's history section to see if they've got any more that could be helpful. Cam (Chat)(Prof) 14:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Raids: Later Conventional Raids
 * probably best to say "midnight of 10/11 January", rather than "midnight of 10 January" for the sake of cleaning up any ambiguity.
 * I think that would actually add ambiguity as it would make the date less clear - midnight on a specific date is a set time, and the timing was "around" midnight anyway so the proposed change would make unclear about whether this operation took place over one or two nights.
 * Raids: Minelaying near Singapore
 * It mentions that two battleships were damaged by minelaying operations. Which ones? Nothing I've read mentions minelaying damage to battleships that were still afloat at the time. From what I've read, Yamato was sunk, Nagato was held up by battle damage, Ise, Hyuga and Haruna were all stranded at Kure due to lack of fuel at that point.
 * The source is very reliable and gives interviews with two Japanese officers and what appears to be a volume of the strategic bombing survey as the citation for that statement, but you do seem to be correct and it wrong. I've removed the reference to the BBs being damaged.
 * Aftermath
 * No issues here.
 * Fix these and I'll be happy to support. Cam (Chat)(Prof) 02:28, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for your great comments Cam - much appreciated. Nick-D (talk) 11:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support - all of my concerns have been addressed. Cam (Chat)(Prof) 14:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.