Jump to content

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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. Anotherclown (talk) 10:50, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines

[edit]
Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk)


Article has already appeared on the front page as a DYK. I created this as a spin off from the main Douglas MacArthur article. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:41, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

  • Interesting article. It could probably do with a simple map though to show the basic locations involved.
  • The first paragraph in the lead assumes the reader knows the context of the situation. If the reader didn't know who MacArthur was or what was happening in 1942 it wouldn't make a lot of sense (it doesn't explain that MacArthur was a US general/field marshal, or that he's fighting the Japanese in the Second World War, for example). I'd advise making the first few sentences much more explanatory.
  • "MacArthur faced a mammoth, and ultimately hopeless, task in getting the Philippine Army ready for war. On a visit to the United States in 1937, he pressed for the development of PT boats." It isn't clear if there's causation between the two sentences or not.
  • Given the pivotal nature of the boats to the story, is it worth giving them a descriptive sentence? (e.g. "PT boats were fast, light craft..." etc.)
  • " his son, Arthur MacArthur IV," - it might be worth giving a broad age for his son (is he an adult, a teenager, etc.) It effects how the later bit about his family is interpreted. (NB: I see his age is given later, probably worth bringing it up to the first mention of him)
  • "and a trawler on 17 February" - as in a fishing trawler?... Sounded a bit odd!
  • " On one of the others, 300 US gallons (1,100 l; 250 imp gal) of fuel were accidentally dumped. " First time I scanned this, I read it as saying that fuel was dumped on the aircraft, rather than fuel was dumped from the aircraft. Worth tweaking slightly.
  • "Only one B-17, piloted by Lieutenant Harl Pease, made it, and it was in poor condition, with no brakes and a faulty supercharger." - "made it" sounded a little informal.
  • " He did not, but the fact that she was aware of MacArthur's presence was disturbing to the party, as the Japanese were only 30 miles (48 km) away" - I might have missed something, but I couldn't work out where the Japanese were in this, so it felt a little confusing.
  • "Sutherland had received word of an incoming Japanese air raid, and had Huff hurry everyone onto the aircraft" - several "had"s here.
  • "Postwar analysis would show that most of the book's claims were exaggerated. But one was not." - the "But one was not" felt a little dramatically phrased to me; also, it wasn't clear what the exaggerated claims were, or what the unexaggerated claim is (that the future staff escaped on the boats...?) Hchc2009 (talk) 17:32, 16 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments This is a great topic for an article, and it's in good shape. My comments are:

Support My comments have now all been addressed. Nick-D (talk) 10:08, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Images: all OK with the exception of File:MacArthur's Escape.jpg which needs details of the US military map on which it is based and a statement of copyright which includes this. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:29, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Damn, you're right. The original map it is based on is a US Army work, which was first published in 1966, although it was created back in the 1940s. Removed map. Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:10, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry, Hawkeye, you're OK: as a work of the US federal government it is in the public domain. I would merely like to see details to confirm this, which you seem to have - a web page source for example. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:22, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Added that. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:26, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments: Given that my forte is political biographies, I can't say much about the military aspects of this article, but since I have two articles up for ACR right now, I felt like I ought to attempt to review one. What follows, then, is mainly a series of comments on the prose. I skipped several quibbles about commas. Overall, I found the article interesting, very detailed, and yet accessible to a military novice (i.e. me).

Lead:

Background:

Decision:

Preparations:

Aircraft:

I have no reason not to support if most of these comments are addressed. If, for some reason, I fail to notice your responses and register a support !vote, ping me on my talk page. Nice work! Acdixon (talk · contribs) 20:40, 30 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are a few of these that I still have concerns about, but nothing worth withholding support over. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 14:15, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. (Edits may take days to show up on that page.) - Dank (push to talk) 03:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Assessment/Douglas_MacArthur%27s_escape_from_the_Philippines&oldid=516293128"