Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Operation Doomsday

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.

---

• No consensus to promote at this time. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Operation Doomsday

Nominator(s): Skinny87 (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I believe it meets all of the criteria, but I'd also like to see how it would fare further up the chain. As far as I know, this article covers everything I've been able to find in english-language sources. I suspect there would be more in Norwegian, but I can't find them, let alone access them. I've also scoured my sources for anything on the liberation of Norway, and found very little I could add for context - it seems to be one of those areas very few historians are interested in. Skinny87 (talk) 08:20, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• Comments This is a very good article, and I'm close to supporting it, but I think it needs a little more work:
  • It seems more accurate to say that the operation was conducted 'following the end of the Second World War in Europe' rather than 'during the Second World War'

Added, that was an easy one!

• • The first paragraph probably goes into too much detail, and is unclear as a result - it should provide a high-level summary of this operation (eg, where the 1st AB division landed, that the operation was successful, etc).

That's the first para of the lede, right? Just to be clear as I'm going. Skinny87 (talk) 10:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's right Nick-D (talk) 10:30, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Still a tad rusty at ledes, but how does that read?

I've simplified it a bit further Nick-D (talk) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

• • I was a bit suprised to read that the initial occupation force planned for Norway "was composed primarily of Norwegian troops, plus a British contingent (initially 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division)" given that the Free Norwegian Army was very small (only a battalion or at most a brigade, from memory) - are you sure that this is accurate?

I did make a small mistake. Otway states that the Norwegian element was 'all Norwegian troops who had been training in Scotland', which I've amended the article to show. Hart also makes the point that Force 134 also included the 12,000 Norwegian police in Sweden, and I've made this clear. Unfortunately, that's all I have on the composition of 134.

• • "4th Parachute Brigade, had been disbanded and its battalions merged with those of 1st Parachute Brigade in the aftermath of the Battle of Arnhem.[7] and was replaced by 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade" is a bit unclear - this should probably be two sentences

Indeed, and I've gone and done this.

• • "There were also fears that the German forces might refuse to surrender and resist the Allied occupation forces instead, as some pockets of resistance had done in the rest of Europe" is also over-complex and repeditive

Yes, I see what you mean. I've rewritten it, taking out the last part of that sentence as it isn't really needed for context, and merged in the Kriegsmarine part. What do you think?

Looks good

• • Can you expand on what the resistance from U-Boat captains was?

Baynes literally just says 'resistance', but I've posted queries to MILHIST and SHIPS to see if anyone can shed more light on this. I have to say that I'm rather intrigued myself - was it bluster, or gunfire?

Madsen, which I've now added for a quote, has some pages on Norway. But unlike the other sources, he doesn't mention any resistance from U-Boat captain's in Norway at all. Just a fairly smooth operation by very few Allied personnel. So I'm stumped for the moment. Skinny87 (talk) 17:05, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I've just checked my copy of Clair Blair's Hitler's U-Boat War and he has nothing on the topic (his coverage of the surrender of the U-boat forces at the end of the war is surprisingly brief what what are two incredibly detailed books). Nick-D (talk) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

• • Also, the statement that this was the only cause of problems seems to partially contradict the previous sentence that " they were greeted enthusiastically by the Norwegian population in Oslo, and encountered little resistance from German troops" which indicates that there was also some resistance in Oslo)

That might just be my poor writing, as there wasn't any resistance in Oslo as far as I know. Does it look okay now?

I have a query here. I have the following from Hart, p. 248: "Immediately after Bohme surrendered, Mil-org's highly-organized and well-armed troops, some 40,000 strong, emerged into the open throughout the country to carry out the peace-keeping role for which they had been trained. These forces not only had to prevent the Wehrmacht from sabotaging power stations and communications, but also had to oversee the movement of German troops from their quarters in Norwegian towns and villages to their alloted reservations. It required considerable tact and firmness both to get German forces into their reservations and to prevent Norwegian retaliation." That does elaborate slightly on what happened to the Germans as they surrendered, but it's so vague and doesn't really mention the paratroopers themselves that I'm wary about adding anything using it. That's the only mention of its kind in my sources - what do you think? Skinny87 (talk) 17:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• • "doing all they could to make their time in the country a positive one" makes it sound like the division was on holiday!

Yes, I see what you mean. I deleted that, it's rather superfluous given the rest of the sentence anyway.

• • How did the division discover the fate of the men of Operation Freshman? (and I think that the amount of detail on this operation could be reduced a bit) Nick-D (talk) 10:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I can't find anything out specifically about how the found out. I reduced the detail as well - is is still too large?

Looks good Nick-D (talk) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the excellent comments, Nick. I'll start working on them immediately. Skinny87 (talk) 10:27, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Righto, that should be everything now. Skinny87 (talk) 12:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support Comments now addressed Nick-D (talk) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

• Comments on the lead section:
• "air-transported portion": too informal. - Dank (push to talk)
• "between 9th-11th May": "The 9th" is okay but "9th May" isn't; see WP:DATE. Also, no hyphen in number ranges of any kind. Also, "between" requires "and", not a dash (per discussions at WT:MOS, I'll hunt up a link if you want it). - Dank (push to talk)
• "occupation force": see WP:EGG. "Force 134, the occupation force." - Dank (push to talk)
• "Planning for the occupation of Norway had begun in mid-1943, with the units assigned to it known as Force 134.": Omit the "with" clause. - Dank (push to talk)
• "The British contingent for Doomsday was initially 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division, but was later replaced by the 1st Airborne Division": There's a missing "the". - Dank (push to talk)
• "was delivered to General": not wrong, but better is "was delivered on 8 May to General". - Dank (push to talk)
• "Despite fears of continued German resistance, the division encountered few problems.": Not a big deal, but I'd prefer "The division encountered little of the expected German resistance." - Dank (push to talk)
• "During its time in Norway, the division helped welcome back ...": not wrong, but the implied "helped ... look" and "helped ... protect" are a little tenuous. One alternative is: "The division's duties in Norway included ...". - Dank (push to talk) 14:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

All done except the date change - I'm rather confused over what I have to do there, date MoS was never my strongest point. Skinny87 (talk) 15:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

• "the command of Headquarters Scottish Command, which had been commanded ...", "British High Command hoped that Thorne taking command of Scottish Command": Each has one "command" too many. - Dank (push to talk) 22:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

That's just been dealt with, and I think that's everything! Skinny87 (talk) 07:16, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• Neutral because of the outstanding opposes. - Dank (push to talk) 15:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

SupportComment - some prose work is needed:

• Lead, "looked after Allied ex-prisoners of war held captive prior to the German surrender" Obviously they had been held captive if they are ex-prisoners of war - you can probably remove after "war" as being redundant.
• Lead, "when it transferred back to Britain and was disbanded two months later". You have the division taking action "it transferred" and then action being taken to it "was disbanded". Either say "was transferred...was disbanded" or "it transferred...and disbanded". Also true at the end of the Aftermath section.
• Background, "in the aftermath of the unconditional surrender of Germany since mid-1943." This could be read as Germany had been surrendering since mid-1943...
• Do we need three redlinks to Operation Apostle in the first three paragraphs (one in lead, one in background, one in infobox)?
• Background, "In its place Thorne was later given the". Is "later" really necessary - it seems obvious that it was later
• 1st Airborne Division, "This was an important port which would be used by the Royal Navy to sweep the surrounding waters for mines." The port wasn't going to be used to sweep for mines - it was used as a base to sweep for mines (I'm assuming).
• Occupation duties, "Although somewhat nervous given the group's small size". Were they nervous or was the population nervous?
• Occupation duties, "None of the men who survived the crashes remained alive for very long, and were executed shortly after capture." The first clause is partially redundant to the second - perhaps reword to something like "The men who survived the crashes were executed shortly after being captured."
• Just as a note, dmy dates don't have commas in them, see WP:DATES. I think I got all of them, but just FYI.

The research, sources and images look good, but the prose needs a bit of polishing. (Note, I edit conflicted with Dank, so there might be some repetition here). Dana boomer (talk) 14:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for this. I knew that prose would be the main problem, so I'll start combing it through next. Skinny87 (talk) 15:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Right, I've hit all of the listed prose above. I'll go through the article myself to look for things, but as I said it's always been my weakness. Would you have the time to kindly go through it, if possible? If not, I'll try and find another copy-editor. Cheers, Skinny87 (talk) 15:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Just one of my comments left, plus I agree with Dank's first comment (on the first sentence) which hasn't been dealt with yet. I've made a few more copyedit tweaks (I had gone through fairly thoroughly before posting my comments here), feel free to revert if you don't like them. Dana boomer (talk) 18:40, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

There's been a whole host of copy-edits to the lede, and I think your last point has been solved now! Thanks once again for the help! Skinny87 (talk) 07:05, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks good now. Thanks for the quick responses. Dana boomer (talk) 15:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Comments Most of the grammar is to my satisfaction to be honest (post adjustments highlighted above), so only 2 comments to make really:

• I really think that the Operation Infobox is more appropriate for an operation of this nature (that occurred after the war, didn't result in a conflict and has no meaningful statistics for one side). In fact I think you can put more information into it than the conflict one allows.

Yes, I see what you mean. Replaced the infobox and added some more details, ie casualties. Skinny87 (talk) 07:13, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• Is is possible to flesh out the SAS Brigade info a little? The link is a redirect to the general SAS article with only a sparse bit of history about their organisation at this time. Interestingly though it does mention French and Belgian units.

Otherwise I think its great (but I would say that as I passed its GA!). Ranger Steve ^Talk 20:04, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll have a look around and see what I can find, but no promises unfortunately. Skinny87 (talk) 07:05, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Gah, no dice thus far. I have a few SAS books, but even the latest one by Asher doesn't have more than a sentence on Norway, and even then it doesn't mention the Brigade itself. Still, I'll keep on trying. Skinny87 (talk) 15:37, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Oppose Article is POV.

I would characterize this article as significantly biased toward the British POV. There is no description of the German forces in Norway beyond a count and commander. Their distribution (geographic and military-hierarchical) is not given at all; even the major units (like, I'm guessing from 5 minutes Googling, 20th Mountain Army) are not identified. This should include at least a brief accounting of what those forces were expected or ordered to be doing before the surrender arrived (defense? suppression of dissent? preparing a new offensive of some sort? withdrawing to Germany proper?)

Lesser issues:

• Who was responsible for identifying and establishing the "collection points" for disarmament? Where were they?
• Was the collection and disarmament completed by the 1st Airborne or still ongoing when they left?
• Characterize if possible the extent of the mine-clearing problem: where, how many, etc.
• Was there any civilian leadership in Norway that needed to be dealt with (either collaborators or Germans), or was Norway under military rule at the time?
• I'm a big fan of maps; this article doesn't have one. (Show Nazi unit dispositions, at least on large scale, and the operation's key points.)
• Do we know who the diplomats/Heralds were (on both sides)?
• Did the commanders (Bohme and Thorne/Urquhart) ever meet? A description of some first contacts would be useful; as it is described now, troops land and seem to suddenly be in control, and there is no obvious transition of power. (I realize there might not be one; this needs to be made more explicit if so.)

It's a decent job, Skinny, but you've only told part of the story. I'd be somewhat surprised if there aren't sources to tell at least some of the other side's story. Magic♪piano 18:48, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear. Yes, now I look it over of course I see the massive blind spot I've had. I guess I should archive this now - plenty of work to do, and I suspect a lot of it will be impossible to find in English sources. Well, thanks for helping finding these anyway, it's much appreciated; it would have been embarrassing if I'd tried to go to FAC with those gaps! Skinny87 (talk) 19:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I found some interesting things while Googling that go part of the way; I'll leave pointers on the talk page. Magic♪piano 19:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

I have to agree with Magicpiano; as currently structured the article needs far better coverage of the Germans' actions. If this is done then I'd suggest renaming the article to Liberation of Norway 1945 or somesuch as it would have much more comprehensive coverage of the whole surrender/liberation than just the British piece of the operation.

However, it could be reworked as the British occupation/liberation only as implied by the title. --Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:55, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

This is a seperate article (Doomsday, the 1st Airborne section) to Apostle (the entire liberation of Norway) just to let you know. It's simply that the latter hasn't been written yet due to a lack of sources, and I'd oppose altering the article from the focus on 1st ABN. Just FYI. Skinny87 (talk) 06:34, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Skinny87, great work on this, even if it's just 1st Airborne Division. Please do try to add a little on the German forces/actions. This is because, as you say, it's going to be a while before Apostle is written, and meanwhile yours will be the default Apostle article. Have you linked this article into the History of Norway article and its' appropriate century-or-whatever subdivision articles? Buckshot06 (talk) 17:34, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

• Co-ordinator comment (not part of review): This ACR will be due for closing shortly (in 2 days), given that there are two opposes it would most likely need to be closed as "no concensus to promote". Before this happens, though, I just wanted to check whether or not these opposes still stood. It appears to me (from an uninvolved perspective) that the nominator might have addressed these concerns. As such, would those who opposed mind stating explicitly whether or not they are still opposed, or are happy with the changes. Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 23:08, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Although a fair amount of work has been done to address my bias concerns, I don't think the work is complete. Most of the items I listed under "Lesser issues" above remain unaddressed. I didn't really expect Skinny (nor did he, the way I read his response to my comments) to address all of my issues in the timeframe of this review. Thus, I still oppose. Magic♪piano 15:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
    • No worries, cheers for clearing that up. Anotherclown (talk) 22:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comments
  • Unless I'm mistaken from reading the article and the reviews above it would seem to me that the POV issues have been largely resolved (although the opposes haven't been struck yet);
  • Maybe I'm being dense but I was a little confused as to how Operation Doomsday fitted in to Operation Apostle - could a sentence be added to clarify this?
  • Overall I think this article is quite good though and I will be happy to support if the other issues have been resolved. Anotherclown (talk) 10:34, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

---

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.