Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Landing at Saidor

Landing at Saidor
New article, currently start-class. Please let me know what improvements are needed. All comments welcome. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Skinny87
Just looking over the article now briefly, a few things stick out:


 * The lead needs to be expanded, but that's not a huge thing
 * ✅ Let me know if you think it needs more.


 * The background is a bit skimpy and could do with some expansion, particularly at the very start to give some wider background to the operation.
 * ✅ Let me know if you think it needs more.


 * The Landing subsection shouldn't have two pictures either side, I think - it looks squashed anyway.


 * I got told that blockquotes no longer need the quotations around them when using them
 * This is true. Reason is that it comes from Doug's communiqué. It establishes his thinking, but the communiqués were notorious for being out of step with reality &mdash; and this one is no exception. So I added the quotes to emphasise this. But will remove if anyone else thinks they should be.

I'll add some more when I have some time. Skinny87 (talk) 11:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The section 'Conclusion' would seem better as 'Aftermath'.
 * 'In the Australian 5th Division's advance from Sio to Saidor between 20 January and the end of February, 734 Japanese were killed, 1,793 found dead, and 48 Japanese prisoners were taken.' - could do with a citation'

Redmarkviolinist

 * Make sure all your references are after punctuation marks.
 * ✅ Re-checked them all.


 * English and American spellings should be consistent.
 * As far as I know they are.

Cheers, Ṝ ed M ark V iolinist Drop me a line 17:27, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Abraham, B.S.
Just a few things that stick out:
 * References are required in the infobox, particularly in the area of strength and casualties.


 * The casualty figures in the infobox do not match those in the "Casualties" section. The correct figures are required, with references, to be in both sections.


 * Image:Principal operations 1943.jpg seriously needs to be moved, as the massive white space is very distracting and not good for presentation.
 * Um, I'd fix this but I'm flying blind here. There's no massive white space on my screen, no matter how wide or narrow I size the window. I'm running at 1920 x 1200. What resolution are you using?
 * Buggered if I know, lol (1024 x 768 perhaps?). The white space on my screen spans from the "Background" section heading to where the text and image sit just below the infobox. Perhaps re-alligning the image to the left and down a paragraph might work?


 * The following sentence requires a citation/reference: "The capture of Saidor officially brought Operation DEXTERITY to a close. All that remained now was the final act of the Huon Peninsula campaign: the capture of Madang."


 * Page ranges used in citations require an endash (–).

Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 22:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Nick-D
This is another great article. Here are my comments:
 * We don't normally italicise operation titles like Operation Michaelmas.


 * The article needs a bit of a copy-edit as some of the wording is a little bit awkward and there are typos
 * Let me know what they are and I'll fix them.


 * It's a bit misleading to say that Operation Cartwheel and related operations was "MacArthur's advance on Rabaul" given that the goal of the operation was to isolate Rabaul  so that it didn't have to be directly attacked
 * ✅ I'd forgotten when the objective changed.


 * The article talks about Allied estimates of Japanese strength in the Saidor area, but doesn't say whether these were right or wrong. If references are available, it would be good if the article also covered how the Japanese used and garrisoned the area prior to the landing
 * GHQ relied on ULTRA and radio traffic analysis for its estimates. At Saidor, they turned out to be quite accurate. I can't be certain, but it appears that after Finschhafen, nobody completely trusted Willoughby's estimates any more. Krueger trusted native rumours instead. The value and limitations of ULTRA would be a key issue in the Hollandia-Aitape campaign.


 * Given that the US goals for the operation were limited to establishing a defensive perimeter, it seems a bit unfair to just repeat criticisms such as "the average American infantryman's idea of a fighting patrol was to lean forward aggressively in his foxhole". Did the Americans try to get their orders amended to allow them to push inland to cut off the Japanese? - it appears that they did, but the article doesn't explicitly state it. Given that a) the force at Saidor was only a reinforced regiment and b) the Japanese 20th Division had taken the Australian 9th Division by surprise when it was conducting a similar operation around Finschhafen, it doesn't seem unreasonable for the American troops to dig in.
 * ✅ I can expand on this. MacArthur's communiqué makes it clear that he expected the Japanese force to be destroyed. Although the 20th Division had taken the Australians by surprise, MacArthur knew that it had taken heavy losses at Finschhafen. (How heavy was not yet apparent.) Krueger was far more cautious. He's got two other battles on the go, and his ability to respond to a changing situation was limited. (Again, Finschhafen may have been in his mind.) He also may not have had a great deal of faith in the 32nd Infantry Division. (A close look at the casualty figures bears him out.)


 * The para on the 10 man Engineer Section seems a bit out of place given that it's first stated that the US force had lots of engineers - was this section the headquarters of the engineer parts of the American force?
 * ✅ Yes, this was the headquarters.


 * Again, if references are available, it would be good if the coverage of the Japanese reaction to the landing could be expanded. I imagine that it's not easy to come by material on this topic though! Nick-D (talk) 10:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)