Talk:Battle of Pearl Ridge

Background

• In September 1944 four brigades from the Australian II Corps took over responsibility for Bougainville from the three divisions of Americans that had been stationed there. This is wrong.
  • The Australians relieved the Americans over three weeks in November-December 1944.
  • XIV Corps had only two divisions, the Americal and 37th, not three.
• The Australians determined that Japanese forces on Bougainville, numbering approximately 40,000—although initial Allied intelligence reports actually placed their strength at 18,000 This is wrong.
  • Based on ULTRA, GHQ reckoned that there were no more than 12,000 Japanese left on Bougainville, while based on ration requests LHQ estimated 25,000. Unable to reconcile the different estimates, they decided to split the difference and go with 18,000. Actually, more than 40,000 Japanese soldiers were still alive on Bougainville in November 1944 but this was only determined after the war.
  • A discussion of this intelligence schmooze is best lest for the main article. Suggest you just say this instead,
• ...were organised in combat-capable formations, We may need military history compatible liveware for a Russell Hill-English translation interface module.
• Following the battle of Pearl Ridge the Australians launched a full scale offensive to counter the Japanese resistance on the island. Is this correct?

Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:36, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Hawkeye, thanks for the comments. I've made some tweaks based on the above. If you feel the info is still wrong, please change it as I know from past experience that you are usually correct in these matters. I have only gone by what my sources say, however, of which I've included below:

(1) Maitland 1999, p. 108: "In September 1944, Australian units began to arrive in order to relieve the Americans and in November, the 2nd Australian Corps assumed command. Three American divisions had been initially replaced by four Australian brigades..." I've tweaked this to remove the mention of three divisions and have just said the divisions of the XIV Corps. The wikipage of this Corps seems also to have some confusion, listing the Americal and 37th Divisions, as well as stating that there were two battalions of Fijans and elements of a third division, the 93rd attached later. So this maybe where Maitland gets the figure of three divisions. Ultimately I'm not sure what the answer is to this. In regards to the date, I've tweaked it to show that advanced elements arrived in September, however, that it was in November-December that the main elements took over.

(2) Most of the background section was culled from the parent article, in an effort (albeit probably lazy on my part) to provide some context. The figures, however, were taken from Johnston's book, but unfortunately I've sent my copy back to the library last week and was working off my notes so I can't include the direct quote. I've now tweaked this and reworded in a manner that I hope clarifies the situation with regard to the estimates and removed the jargon from the paragraph. I believe that some of the information needs to be retained in this article to provide context, however, so I've maintained some of it.

(3) Long 1963, p. 116: "One more action was fought by the 7th Brigade in the central sector before it was transferred to the south in consequence of the decision to open a full scale offensive against the Japanese force". I'm not sure if this means that the full scale offensive occurred after Pearl Ridge or not, however, that is how I read it.

Can you please let me know if you think it needs any more work? Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 22:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

1. The 93rd Infantry division had left Bougainville before II Corps arrived.
2. My own notes are from the documents in the Blamey papers. This was not the first time that GHQ underestimated the Japanese strength and unfortunately it wouldn't be the last either. The interesting thing was that GHQ, which believed that there were 12,000 Japanese felt that four brigades were required, while LHQ, which believed there were twice as many, felt that only two brigades were required. The text as it is now is fine.
3. The offensive did occur after Pearl Ridge. I was just trying to decide if the reader who comes to the article cold has enough context to correctly understand.

The article could use more work but happily reassessed as B class. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:54, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

• Cheers, Hawkeye. Thanks for your help fixing the the citations and with cropping the image too, by the way. I was not very happy with the border around it, but couldn't work out how to fix it last night. (I'm a CE, so breaking things is more my style, not fixing them...) My plan is to complete the Australian Bougainville battles up to B class as the topic seems to have not received much treatment yet and then maybe run them through peer review and then maybe GA. Of course, it all depends upon work commitments, and whether I get side tracked with unit histories, etc. — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:04, 28 November 2009 (UTC)