Talk:Battle of Wake Island

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Contents 1 To do 2 United States article on featured candidate nominations list 3 Generic "marines" 4 Battlefield 2 video game 5 Result 6 Excessive detail in battlebox

[edit] To do

	To-do list for Battle of Wake Island:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
Wake Island order of battle

[edit] United States article on featured candidate nominations list

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States

Cast your vote! The more responses, the more chances the article will improve and maybe pass the nomination.--Ryz05 _t 22:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Generic "marines"

There were marines deployed on both sides, and the statement in introduction is meant to reflect that. Please stop changing it to "[[United States Marine Corps|Marines]]" - they weren't the only marines involved! --Jpbrenna 18:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Battlefield 2 video game

Removing/rewriting "the only inaccurate part of the map is that the artillery island is not an actual part of the island in real life." BF2's "Wake Island 2007" map has plenty of trees in an area which is today a runway.

[edit] Result

Result of the battle was "Japanese military victory United States Morale victory", changed it to Japanese victory. While the Americans put up good fight, we shouldn't cast out any morale victories in result section. If we do, we should probably add them to all battles of WW2 where small garrisons have proven to be resilient, and there are lots of those. Muhvi 12:05, 28.08.2006 (UTC+3)

I concur --- first of all, the phrase is "moral victory --- yes, they have the same root, but moral is the usual rendering in English. Secondly, Muhvi is right on: There have already been disputes about phrases like Pyrrhic victory etc. in Battle of Crete and other articles. If we are going to use them, we need to come up with useful definitions, discuss, and vote on them in the Military History Wikiproject. Perhaps we can come up with a useful definition of "Pyrrhic" (Iff victor casualties/vanquished casualties > percentage N --- and in this case it may have indeed been Pyrrhic for the Japanese ), but moral victory is so amorphous as to be almost useless in a battlebox, because it needs so much hedging and further discussion. I agree that Wake was a moral victory as it served to galvanize public support and enhance the reputation of the Marine Corps --- which would prove critical after the war when it was suggested in earnest that the Marines be abolished --- but by any other measure it was a defeat. Pardon my slippery slope, but if we start allowing terms like "Moral Victory" in the battlebox for Wake Island, we'll soon have to allow "Learning Experience" for disasters like the Dieppe Raid and "A Bridge Too Far" for Operation Market Garden. Let's just call a defeat a "defeat" and elaborate in the article. --Jpbrenna 21:10, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

In some ways, Wake WAS a Morale (e added purposely) victory. After the trashing at Pearl Harbor, it gave the American public and military a morale boost to see the US marines and civilians hold out so long against such overwhelming odds. Wake, in some ways, proved to the average American after Pearl Harbor that the military COULD fight, and fight outstandingly well despite having everything against them. I've read period papers, letters and diaries, and Wake was BIG news in 1941, even though it was a loss for the United States. While agree about the removal of "Moral Victory," I do think some reference to the morale effect Wake had on the American public after Pearl might be good to ref. --205.157.110.11 22:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone edited the result again, reverted it. If you want to include something about morale, add section about it to the article itself. Battlebox should remain with simple japanese victory because that it is. It is not the place for in depth analysis of situation, it is simple fact box. Muhvi 00:11, 23.10.2006 (UTC+3)

[edit] Excessive detail in battlebox

The battlebox was cluttered and did not conform to Wikipedia style standards (especially bizzare was the use of braces for parentheses). The breakdowns by service were uneccesary: anyone who is that interested will likely read the whole article and learn them in the course of his reading. I also took out the POW murders: these were not battle deaths, which are an inevitable consequence of war, they were mass-murders committed long after the battle had ended, and they are discussed fully in the article. We simply can't cram a whole article into the battlebox --- which defeats its purpose --- so we need to keep it brief. --Jpbrenna 21:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)