Talk:Admiralty Islands campaign

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[edit] References

Which sources document this campaign? Cla68 08:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I've added the two books I've read which cover the campaign. --Nick Dowling 09:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I've added another dozen. These books have good chapters on the Admiralty Islands; but there is only one book entirely about the campaign. Fairly typical of the overall lack of interest in the Second World War. Hawkeye7 21:03, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
One reason that it's not better documented is because the U.S. Marines weren't involved and the other is that it didn't happen in Europe. Many of the Pacific War operations and battles are under-documented by historians, IMO. Cla68 11:59, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate articles on Los Negros and Manus

Great work Hawkeye. I'm thinking we could forget about these and re-direct the pages here. Likewise the Admiralty Islands campaignbox, which is only ever going to have two articles in it. What do others think? Grant | Talk 11:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the two battles are creations of the Wikipedia. I'm not sure what they should cover. The US Army recognises a campaign called "Bismarck Archipelago" which covers New Britain, the Admiralty Islands, and Emirau. The article has a way to go yet. I'm not sure how large it is going (or is allowed) to be. Hawkeye7 21:36, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
The article can be as big as you want, see WP:NOTPAPER. From my recollection Los Negros and Manus were distinct operations. If this is going to be a big article then maybe we do need two subsidiary articles.
I think the idea of a "Bismarck Archipelago campaign" is more about superficial geography and the convenience of military historians, than closely connected operations. New Britain is quite a distance from the Admiralties and the fighting there was long and complex. The Emirau landing was unopposed, and the Marines were met by "Seventh Day Adventist missionaries"! Grant | Talk 02:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Historians normally take a geographical approach to the war in the Pacific, making it a series of overlapping campaigns. From a military point of view, the Admiralty Islands were part of CARTWHEEL, along with the Markham and Ramu Valleys, Finschhafen, Saidor, Cape Gloucester etc.
The division between Los Negros and Manus is a geographical one too. Fighting went on on both islands simultaneously, fought by troops of the same division. There were also the subsidiary operations on Seeadler Harbour. Hawkeye7 04:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a general problem we have at Wikipedia is different and overlapping definitions/concepts from country to another. I looked into these issues a lot when I set up the various campaignboxes and linking articles for the New Guinea campaign. Part of the problem is differences between the US and Australian involvements/experiences and the different geographical concepts from one country to another. For instance, American historians talk about the "Battle of Buna" and not Buna-Gona; they also tend to consider Rabaul/New Britain to be part of the Solomons campaign, rather than New Guinea, even though it was part of the Territory of New Guinea (later Papua-New Guinea), and came under the South West Pacific Area in the latter stages of the war. We must not forget Japanese definitions and concepts either. To compound this, there is often a lack of awareness among military history buffs in one country about the parallel histories of other countries. Cartwheel obviously existed, but I question the extent to which there was a "Bismarck Archipelago campaign" in reality.

So to cut a long story short, my solution was based largely on a series of Australian War Memorial articles, which carve the broader New Guinea campaign up into clear and unambiguous geographical areas, in distinct time periods. In this I followed the way that articles on famous battles of the Central Pacific are grouped in a similar way, under less famous geographical names (e.g. Battle of Iwo Jima is part of Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign.) From that point of view we can probably live without separate articles on Los Negros and Manus. Grant | Talk 06:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that only one article is needed - this campaign basically consisted of a fierce, but brief, battle on Los Negros followed by some mopping up. This is looking like being a great article BTW. --Nick Dowling 11:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Okay, that is all for me for now. I think that a single article works okay. Would someone be so kind as to remove the Admiralty Islands Campaign Box? Hawkeye7 09:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I see you've already done it. I have now nominated the template for deletion and created redirects from "Battle of Manus" and "Battle of Los Negros" to this article. Grant | Talk 13:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Los Negros

Content moved from Talk:Battle of Los Negros.
This should really be its own article. This was a really important battle, as it was the campaign spearhead.... aliasd·U·T 11:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I know what you are saying, but the problem is that that the Los Negros battle is the main part of the campaign, and it is now covered in detail in the Admiralty Islands campaign article. Grant | Talk 13:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Let me know if there is some part of the article that you feel still needs expansion. Hawkeye7 22:14, 1 October 2007 (UTC)