Talk:Military history of the United States during World War II/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Nick-D (talk) 04:07, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Comments

I'm afraid that this article currently falls well short of meeting the GA criteria, and doesn't even meet the B class criteria. The main areas where improvements are needed are:

• Most importantly, the article doesn't provide a coherent narrative of the US involvement in the war. It's focused on the most famous battles, and doesn't link them up or explain the overall progress of campaigns. Most of the sections are very short, and provide little detail.
• The lead should be expanded to three or so paragraphs
• The article needs a lot more references - all material should be supported by a reference
• Some important events aren't covered at all - for instance, there's nothing on the US Navy's submarine campaign against Japan or the conventional bombing of the country, both of which were major efforts which were crucial to the Allied victory. The US war economy and the process by which the military was expanded also aren't covered at all.
• The article presents the operations of American forces in isolation from those of both their allies and enemies. Given that US forces regularly fought alongside those of other countries, this leads to a very incomplete and somewhat biased narrative
• The number of photos and maps is highly inadequate
• Some of the article's prose is rather simplistic and contains factual inaccuracies. For instance:
  • "The Great Depression had also crippled the economy, forcing the United States to neglect its military and focus on other concerns." - recent scholarship is challenging this view. The US Navy was expanded significantly during the Great Depression and the USAAC wasn't in bad shape all things considering.
  • "While not an official declaration of war on the part of the United States, Lend-Lease could be described as a display of US Government sympathies but not US public opinion." - this seems dubious - surely Congress wouldn't have authorised something which was strongly opposed by the public. Again, recent histories emphasise that the extent of US support for the Allies and ague that American public support for their cause was very significant before the outbreak of war (for instance, there was no serious move to send support to the Axis powers and moves to cut off supplies to these countries were fairly uncontroversial)
  • "Marines from the 1st Marine Division and soldiers from the Army XIV Corps landed on Guadalcanal near the Tenaru River on 7 August 1942." - the Army units didn't arrive until well after this time
  • "Race to Berlin" (section header) - no such 'race' ever took place as Eisenhower had no interest in attempting to take the city

In short, this article requires very significant expansion before it can be considered to meet the GA criteria. I think that this is well beyond the reasonable scope of this review, and so am closing it as a fail. I'd encourage you to expand the article and then re-nominate it when it's in better shape. Military history of Australia during World War II is an example of a FA level article on a similar topic which might be useful as an example (though Australia's part in the war was obviously less significant - and hence easier to write about - than that of the US). Nick-D (talk) 04:07, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Assessment

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Nick-D (talk) 04:07, 2 July 2011 (UTC)