Talk:New Georgia campaign

Not Nimitz

The assertion here that the campaign was run by Pacific ocean Areas (Nimitz) is in direct contradiction to the Cartwheel link, which says Southwest Pacific Area (MacArthur). Cartwheel is correct, btw.Nimitz had no control in the Solomons.--Buckboard 18:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Elkton

I removed a bit about the "socalled Elkton" for capturing Rabaul. I don't think it particularly helpful to name a plan without identifying why it has that name. It's sufficient to describe the plan. Binksternet (talk) 14:35, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have beefed up this article. Also, I suggest we change the hierarchy of the campaignboxes. It would be better to have only three links under Solomons Islands Campaign: Guadalcanal Campaign, New Georgia Campaign and Bougainville Campaign. Then have all the various land and naval battles within each subcampaign. I have done this to the New Georgia campaignbox as an example. Hungrydog55 (talk) 20:30, 10 May 2015 (UTC)hungrydog55

Split

@Emiya1980: G'day, per the tag you added with this edit [1], can you please advise if there an article you think the information should be split into? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:28, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Does anyone have any comments on this? From my perspective, this article seems to use a reasonable summary style in the section that has been tagged: it links to the individual battle articles, which would be the location for the coverage to be expanded, IMO, as those articles are indeed currently underdeveloped. However, I don't see much gain in removing content from this article, and as such I don't believe the split tag is reasonable. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:38, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

@AustralianRupert: Hi. Sorry for taking so long to respond. While the article is intended to summarize the New Georgia Islands campaign, it also seems to be doubling as a comprehensive overview for the Battle of New Georgia Island (singular). What only adds to the confusion is that the infobox is titled "Battle for New Georgia" and a disproportionately large amount of space is devoted to New Georgia Island compared with the battles for other islands comprising the campaign. IMO, under such circumstances, the article in its present form is likely to mislead viewers about the scope of the campaign (i.e. that it was confined to one island like Peleliu or Iwo Jima rather than an island chain like the Marianas or the Gilberts.) Therefore, I posted the split tag in the hopes other editors would create a separate article about the battle incorporating most of what's written here and replacing with a summarized account more appropriate for a page about the broader campaign. Emiya1980 (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@Emiya1980: Sorry, I don't see where the infobox uses the term "Battle of New Georgia", other than an image filename which is only visible in edit mode (File:Battle of New Georgia.jpg). Is that what you are referring to? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Ok, sorry, I'm a bit slow, I see you have already fixed this with this edit: [2]. Thanks for that. I have tried to make the article's focus a bit clearer in the lead by summarising the campaign in more detail. Beyond that, though, I am a bit reluctant to reduce this article's coverage. While I definitely agree with you that the individual battle articles should be expanded (as far as I can tell, there are now stubs for most, if not all, of the individual actions), the battle sections in this article are already relatively short when describing the battles (usually between two to four paragraphs by my reckoning). That said, I think we could probably get away without the large block quotes and potentially the Vella Lavella section could be reduced a little. Thoughts? AustralianRupert (talk) 09:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@AustralianRupert: Thanks for expanding the lead of the article. It goes a long way towards emphasizing to viewers that the article addresses the New Georgia campaign rather than just the battle for the island of the same name.

Just for the purpose of clarification, I don't really have any issues with the quality of the article per se. It provides a lot of essential details about the subject and does so in a manner that is fairly engaging and concise. As a stand alone work, I think it does an excellent job of summarizing the campaign as a whole. That being said, the article is one component of a larger chain of articles designed to provide Wikipedia's visitors with a comprehensive and accessible resource on all aspects of World War II. From this standpoint, I feel the article doesn't leave a lot of room for the creation of a separate page devoted solely to the Battle for New Georgia Island that could do it full justice.

Unlike say the Guadalcanal campaign, there are numerous islands in the New Georgia campaign that are the focus of battles individually significant on their own. So far, I can see there is already movement in that direction with the creation of articles devoted individually to battles on other islands in the campaign like Vella Lavella and Wickham Anchorage on Vangunu. Seeing as those battles have their own articles, it only makes sense that the biggest battle of the campaign should have its own as well.

Towards that end, I can see a few ways in which the detail of information contained provided in this article can be, if not removed, then at least condensed. For instance, I think the sub-sections detailing the landings on Rendova and Kula Gulf can be condensed into one sub-section called "Initial landings". To prevent this new subsection from becoming an unwieldy wall of text, I think it would be feasible to remove references to individual vessels unrelated to noteworthy (i.e. listed) naval battles as well as some sentences recording the progression of U.S. forces's without placing it within the broader context of their objectives. Further condensing of these subsections can be achieved by removing the first and last paragraphs of Main landings (which cover actions on islands outside of New Georgia and go beyond the time frame being addressed respectively). Likewise, I think both subsections about Munda can be combined into one called "The Fight for Munda". In order to streamline the flow of their combined content, I think the level of detail can be condensed by removing the block quotes as well as by shortening a few paragraphs through a few deft combinations of their component sentences that render them more concise without any loss of material information conveyed. For example:

From

"The Japanese brought reinforcements over by barge from Vila to Bairoko, and 1,200 more troops were loaded onto four destroyer-transports at Rabaul and sent down to be landed at Vila on the night of 12–13 July. These ships were escorted by a light cruiser and five destroyers. Admiral Ainsworth was sent to intercept this flotilla with three light cruisers and ten destroyers. He encountered the Japanese force in The Slot in the waters north of Kolombangara Island. The ensuing Battle of Kolombangara resulted in the sinking of the American destroyer Gwin, the Japanese light cruiser Jintsu, and the death of Rear Admiral Shunji Isaki."
— "Debacle on Munda", Conquest of New Georgia Island

To

On the night of 12–13 July, a Japanese flotilla escorted by five destroyers and one light cruiser carrying reinforcements up to 1,200 troops embarked from Rabaul to Vila. U.S. Admiral Ainsworth was subsequently sent to intercept this force with three light cruisers and ten destroyers. In the ensuing battle that occurred north of Kolombangara Island, the American destroyer U.S.S. Gwin and the Japanese light cruiser Jintsu were sunk.

These are all of course preliminary suggestions and can be worked out in further discussions. Emiya1980 (talk) 01:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

G'day, your suggested wording in the quote box above seems okay to me, but I'd like to explore a couple of your other points first. Regarding creating a Battle of New Georgia Island article, if that article was created how would you see that linking-in with the articles that have been created for the individual actions (e.g. Viru Harbor, Wickham Anchorage, the Munda drive, the fighting at Enogai, the Japanese counterattack, the attack on Bairoko and the Battle of Munda Point)? I would be concerned that that approach might duplicate those articles, and lead to even more confusion as to its scope when compared with this article. Thoughts? Secondly, when you say you would suggest removal of the first and last paragraphs of the main landing section, are you referring to the paragraphs beginning "A force consisting of portions of the 4th Marine Raider Battalion and the 103rd Infantry Regiment landed at Oloana Bay on the south coast of Vangunu Island..." (1st paragraph in the section) and "On 2 July, the Americans were ready to make a landing in the Munda area..." (4th paragraph in the section)? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

The works I've read on this campaign (primarily the US Navy and US Army official histories, from memory) treat it as a single campaign. The fact that it comprised a series of geographically seperated engagements is often identified as being part of its shambolic nature on the US side, where there was no real concentration of effort for much too long. Nick-D (talk) 04:42, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

G'day, I have done a bit of work over the past couple of days to move a bit of the detail into the daughter articles. Is there any feedback on the recent changes? Further to Nick's comment, I am not sure that a Battle of New Georgia Island article is a good idea; I am also reticent to remove the suggested paragraphs of the main landing section as the sources treat these operations as part of this campaign. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:12, 25 April 2020 (UTC)