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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Porton Plantation

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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.

Article promoted by Peacemaker67 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 10:06, 22 June 2016 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Nominator(s): AustralianRupert (talk)

Battle of Porton Plantation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

An article I took to GA five years ago, but which I've recently revisited. Focusing on a failed Australian amphibious landing in Bougainville in the final months of the Second World War, I am keen to improve the article further. Thanks to all those who stop by. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:01, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Support
    • Tool checks reveal no issues - no dabs, images all have alt text, external links check out, no repeat links, no citation errors (no action req'd).
    • "The Battle of Porton Plantation (8–10 June 1945) took place at Porton Plantation,[Note 1] near the village of Soraken on Bougainville Island, in the Solomon Islands archipelago during World War II." This seems a bit redundant to me. Perhaps reduce the first sentence to "The Battle of Porton Plantation (8–10 June 1945) took place near the village of Soraken on Bougainville Island, in the Solomon Islands archipelago during World War II." Then move the note to the next instance of Porton Plantation in the fol para. (suggestion only)
    • "The fighting occurred after a company-sized Australian force..." Would it pay to more explicitly identify the AS force involved in the landing in the lead? (suggestion only)
    • Should it be added to Category:Battles of World War II involving New Zealand (suggestion only)?
    • Otherwise, I only made a few minor tweaks [1][2] as this looks in good shape to me. Anotherclown (talk) 10:35, 10 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments It's great to see a high quality article on this important battle. I have the following comments:

  • The first two paras should note that this operation formed part of the Australian attempt to liberate northern Bougainville
  • "The Australian corps commander, Savige, consequently decided that he would pursue an aggressive offensive campaign to clear the Japanese from Bougainville" - I'd suggest noting that this is what he'd been directed to do by Blamey as well. I'm also not sure about "aggressive" - Karl James demonstrates convincingly in his book that Savige planned and executed a very careful offensive, and repeatedly reined in his most aggressive commanders to minimise casualties.
  • "with requests for preliminary air strikes being denied by II Corps" - do we know why?
  • "as well as a failure to heed the concerns of a number of officers involved in the planning stage of the operation" - what were these concerns? (and can they be noted earlier in the article)
  • "albeit at significant cost" - not sure about this given that Japanese losses weren't much higher than the Australian losses, and seem to have been much lower as a proportion of the forces involved. It was also unusual by this stage of the war for the cut off Japanese garrisons to inflict anything like the number of casualties they sustained.
  • Have any historians explicitly contrasted the limited resources available for this operation with the much more considerable resources available for the Borneo landings which occurred at around the same time? Nick-D (talk) 07:28, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nick-D: Thanks for these comments, I think I've got them now. These are my edits: [4]. Please let me know if you think anything else needs to be adjusted. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:54, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments are now addressed - nice work Nick-D (talk) 10:53, 1 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support I've reviewed the article and the other comments. I think the only comments I would raise are verb tenses in the discussion of the historiography, but I suspect that is an Aussie v US thing, so no biggie. Tidy article. Question: I guess these weren't the wing-dam type jetties, but simply beaches with a channel between then? auntieruth (talk) 20:26, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

G'day Ruth, thanks for taking a look. I've added a different image in to focus on the jetties a bit more: File:Porton jetty (AWM image P02729 008).jpg. It's a bit hard to tell, but I'd say you are right. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:03, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment -- just did a quick spotcheck/tweak/trim of a few phrases and other stuff; I won't register a support because I haven't gone through the whole article but given the calibre of the reviewers above I don't think it's needed, no concerns about promotion. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:28, 20 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]


The discussion above 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.