Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Australian contribution to the Battle of Normandy

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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.

Promoted -- Ian Rose (talk) 10:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Australian contribution to the Battle of Normandy[edit]

Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk)


While Australians comprised only a small proportion of the Allied forces during the Battle of Normandy in 1944, this campaign involved the great majority of the thousands of Australians (most airmen) stationed in the United Kingdom at this time. This article passed a GA review in November and has since been expanded. As such, I think that it may now meet the A class criteria, and would appreciate other editors views on this. To preemptively respond to two questions which are going to be asked; the article is heavily reliant on John Herington's volume in the Australian official history because - amazingly - it remains the only work to cover the operations of the Royal Australian Air Force in Europe during this period in any detail. It's a well regarded book, though. The other likely issue is that the article doesn't contain a figure for the total Australian casualties in this campaign. I've looked everywhere for such a figure, but have been unable to find it. The best I could find is the number of Australians killed on D-Day, and the number buried in war cemeteries in Normandy (which include some servicemen killed in the region well before the invasion, but obviously do not include Australians who died of wounds incurred during the campaign after their planes or ships returned to the UK). Thanks in advance for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 10:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support, with very minor comments:

  • The first lead para gives several "hundreds of", which sounded repetitive; I'm not sure it married up with the thousands then cited in the second para (unless I've misunderstood)
    • Done
  • "the county's military" - Australia's only a small place, and a former colony and all, but I still think "country's" would be more appropriate. :)
    • Oops, fixed (and there's no reason to be mean! :p )
  • " and rapidly liberated most of France and reached" - if you said "to reach the German border", you'd avoid two "and"s Hchc2009 (talk) 20:20, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Done. Thanks a lot for taking the time to review the article: I really appreciate it. Nick-D (talk) 07:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments:

  • I wonder if Note 2 shouldn't just be included in the body of the article. As a foot slogger, I'm obviously biased, but I'd love to hear more of the Army experience in Normandy, as its something that I bet most Australians would know nothing about. Obviously, though, as Army officers represented such a small part of the Australian contribution, I understand that there is a need to treat it with due weight;
    • I'd included it as a note as I didn't want to give undue weight to this officer (given that I haven't been able to find out what the other ten or so did). I've added this to the body of the article as an example of the roles these officers filled, however, and I think that it works well. There's a very interesting magazine/journal article (or thesis?) to be written on what these officers did, I suspect, and it's a shame no-one has written it yet. Nick-D (talk) 23:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • not sure of the capitalisation here: "the low countries". I think it should be "the Low Countries";
    • 'Low Countries' is preferred; fixed Nick-D (talk) 23:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • this is a little repetitious: "but many were unable to drop their bombs due to cloud over the target area... but many did not drop their bombs as cloud and smoke obscured the target area..."
  • I'm a little confused by the date here: "No. 10 Squadron flew a similar number of patrols to those it had conducted during August". This seems to already be talking about August, do you mean that in August they flew a similar number of patrols to those that it had conducted during July? Sorry if I've missed something;
  • in the Bibliography, the title for the Converse source probably shouldn't have a space before the colon;
    • Fixed
  • in the Bibliography, the title for the Lecouturier source probably should be capitalised as The Beaches of the D-Day Landings. AustralianRupert (talk) 11:08, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree that it's unusual, but that's the capitalisation the book uses, so I've stuck with it (the book appears to have been written by a French national and was published in France which might explain things a bit). Thanks a lot for your review. Nick-D (talk) 23:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support (as the GA reviewer)
    • No dab links [1] (no action required).
    • External links all check out [2] (no action required).
    • Images lack Alt Text so you might consider adding it [3] (suggestion only).
      • For some reason I thought that I had added alt text already... I'll fix it up. Nick-D (talk) 22:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Citation Check Tool reveals no errors with reference consolidation (no action required).
    • The images used are all PD or licenced and are appropriate to the article (no action required).
    • Are there any images that might illustrate the involvement of Australian naval personnel? (suggestion only)
      • Unfortunately not. The AWM doesn't have anything, and the only relevant photo on the Imperial War Musuem's website is this, and it's rather short of historical value! Nick-D (talk) 22:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've read through it again and believe it meets the A class criteria. Anotherclown (talk) 14:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks a lot for your comments Nick-D (talk) 22:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment/Suggestion -- while I was going to review in depth as it's an interesting subject that's of course close to my heart, I'm quite happy to see this promoted as is, given it has the requisite support. My one suggestion based on a quick read, especially if going for FAC, is to personalise it with a few more individuals' stories, particularly if that involves wikilinks to notables. For instance Nicky Barr went ashore on D-Day+2 on attachment to an air control unit, and later in the campaign flew Typhoons against V-1 launch sites. If you check John Balmer and William Brill you might find something you can use re. their roles in interdiction raids before and after D-Day. There may be other notables I haven't thought of who could be mentioned. Anyway, just a thought... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks Ian; that's a good idea. It would be nice to flesh the article out a bit more, and illustrate what the Australians actually did. Nick-D (talk) 05:10, 4 March 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.
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