Talk:Battle of Leyte Gulf

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Battle of Leyte Gulf is a featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, feel free to contribute.

An event mentioned in this article is an October 25 selected anniversary.

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What did we get out the battle

Contents

1 Image formatting 2 "Largest" battle 3 Image shows burning ship, but it is not mentioned it the article 4 Miscellany 5 Japanese characters 6 Featured article status? 7 Where was the landing? 8 What was the scale? 9 Defacement

Image formatting

So, uh, let's discuss the image instead of instantly reverting? We really need the caption, otherwise the reader just sees a smoke cloud, not exactly informative in the encyclopedic way. The thumb is one way (and has the advantage that it also indicates that the picture can get larger), or we could have a line break and then the caption. But to omit captioning entirely is not the right way to go. Stan 04:03, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's not ommitted -- it appears when you hoover the mouse over the picture. And the reason I changed it is because this (as the article stands now) is the standard battlebox format (you can find the whole writeup at Wikipedia:WikiProject Battles). →Raul654 04:06, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, I see at least one other person who objected to the lack of captions in the template, but no response to that point. Hovering is going to look pretty funny for a multi-line caption! But I'll let the caption project folks fight that battle :-) Stan 04:37, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There was never any final agreement on rules for images in the battlebox. They obviously look better un-thumbnailed and captionless so probably only self-explanatory images should go in the battlebox. There's certainly no rule saying if an article only has one image, that has to go in the battlebox. Geoff/Gsl 05:21, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For the record, hover captions do not work in all browsers. Plain text captions do.--Carnildo 07:01, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I tried to introduce active full sentance captions throughout which would lead readers into the body text, in line with Wikipedia:WikiProject_Writing_Captions; some of my efforts have been removed. They can be seen at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf&oldid=7562889 Perhaps they can be improved and reinstated? Richard Taylor 21:20, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I changed your captions. (1) A WikiProject doesn't represent policy. (2) Noun phrase captions are just as good, and are often shorter and snappier than full sentence captions. They are used widely in professional publishing. (3) You made the noun phrases into sentences by introducing obvious and redundant verbiage like "This chart shows..." or "...is shown here..." (4) You introduced a past tense into one caption. I did keep the one about Zuikaku no longer being the flagship of the Japanese fleet. Gdr 22:58, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)

"Largest" battle

After the initial vandalism, I checked again and it seems there are battles with more ships and possibly more "men" in ancient history. However, there doesn't seem to be much doubt in terms of the area covered and the tonnage. Grant65 (Talk) 22:10, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

Actium defintely had more ships, and I suspect Salamis did too. But number of men is a bit iffy. →Raul654 22:15, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

I deemed that there would be a need for a page for this issue, so please see Largest Naval Battle in History. Rather than having an endles rambling about men, ships, aircraft, tonnage, time, and surface area in every article you can now refer directly to that page. At least when I created the page it made no comment asto what actually is the largest battle. My aim was to present facts and allow readers to form their own opinions. I don't think there is a definite answer for this question. Chino

Chino, is it you that us repeatedly removing the mention of tonnage and area in the opening sentence? I would like whoever it is to explain why they are doing that. I don't see how there can be any question about Leyte being the largest battle in terms of these.

Also, my last edit included the link to Largest naval battle in history. I think it's better style to work the link into the sentence rather than have it in brackets.Grant65 (Talk) 14:58, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

I have changed the only text once, but I have followed "the battle" with amusement :-) I actually agree with the person who came up with the idea that Leyte is the second largest naval battle in history, altough his/her claims about the Battle of Aegates Islands are clearly wrong. But I also know that such a large portion of Wiki users are American that the truth would invariably disappear :-) My opinion is that both Leyte and Ecnomus pages should state that the battle _may_ be concidered the largest in history and then have a link to the Largest naval battle in history. That page should, in my opinion, provide the facts and let people themselves make up their minds. This is, as I think we all agree, a matter of opinion. To compromise my latest edit of Leyte (which might not survive the next ten minutes) mentions both the "tonnage" and "number of ships" issue. This makes the beginning of the page quite cumbersome... I still prefer "Often regarded as largest" and link to page with info for those who really like to know what "often" means in this context. Chino

I'm not happy about Ecnomus being mentioned in the Leyte article. I think the link to "largest naval battle" is enough. That way if people search for "largest naval battle" they will go straight to that page, and not to the Leyte or Ecnomus pages. I doubt that people interested in either Leyte or Ecnomus are very interested in the other battle. Grant65 (Talk) 16:05, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)

Since there do not seem to be any objections from registered users, can I ask that the direct reference to Ecnomus be removed from the page? (How strange would it look if Leyte was mentioned on Battle of Ecnomus?) Grant65 (Talk) 22:34, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

The current version is my attempt for a compromise. As I said, it is cumbersome. In my opinion it all boils down to "generally considered". Most people read it as "most probably is". The meaning we should convey is that Leyte is "one of the two candidates for the largest naval battle in history". Probably not in those words, tough. The whole discussion seems to be more about definitions and wording than facts. Chino

I don't think it is "one of two candidates" in terms of tonnage and area. And I don't think that is a "cumbersome" definition. I think you need to show why Ecnomus should be mentioned on the Leyte page.Grant65 (Talk) 11:40, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

Conceptually, I don't think there is a problem with mentioning Ecnomus - it's very common for article to namedrop topics with some kind of connection, and indeed that is one of the "value-adds" of being hyperlinked. But first I would like to see some citations of professional historians stating anything about relative sizes, rather than random people making claims on their own - very slender - authority. I'm on the road, so my own library is not at hand, but will be home in a couple days and able to consult relevant works. Stan 16:22, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"At the most basic level, it is hardly possible to form a clear notion of how battles were fought. Professor Lazenby remarks that "we do not even know exactly what a quinquereme was". He is too optimistic. We do not even know approximately what a quinquereme was, except that it was the principal warship on both sides and had a name derived from five somethings having to do with oars."[1] (http://www.history-asia.com/The_First_Punic_War_A_Military_History_0804726744.html)"

If the prime source is official Roman budget records, then we are not talking about the records of a liberal democracy. There are good reasons for the size of both Roman and Carthaginian fleets to be exaggerated. For example, to hide corruption and incompetence. Whereas the accounts of Leyte Gulf have been arrived at by cross-referencing sources from several countries. Grant65 (Talk) 04:40, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

I vote for this article having something like

probably/possibly/generally considered/etc the largest naval battle in history

and leaving the detailed arguments and other candidates to that article. Or even nothing at all. It would be better to put some work into expanding the account of the battle than warring over trivia like this! Gdr 21:59, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)

Why has protected status been removed? The people who wanted Ecnomus mentioned in the frst paragraph have not consented with the present version and they will no doubt do their stuff again.Grant65 (Talk) 10:13, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

I asked for protection to be removed because I wanted to write something about the battle. It's only one sentence in the introduction, after all, and it's not wholly objectionable, so I think we can live with the Ecnomus enthusiasts. Eventually they will go away and the reference can be removed. Gdr 11:40, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)

To make the discussion more concrete, I would like to give two wordings that I would be satisfied with. The other one is the current version, and the other would be simply "Often concidered to be the largest naval battle in history". Often is the key word. --Chino 05:12, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If I understand Chino correctly, he is satisfied with the present wording of "generally considered", as long as Ecnomus is mentioned. No one else seems enthusiastic to mention Ecnomus --- or even to believe that the Roman sources are credible, but so be it. However, I do think the passage should be at the very top of the first paragraph since -- IMO --- the "epic" size of the battle is the most noteworthy fact about it.Grant65 (Talk) 09:54, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

I support Gdr's suggestions. --Chino 10:25, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Image shows burning ship, but it is not mentioned it the article

There is picture of burning USS Princeton, but no single loss is mentioned on US side. Could we make a bit better balanced article? saigon_from_europe

Miscellany

There should be a link in here about the [[USS Leyte Gulf (CG-55)]], and maybe other information on naval craft named after people in the battle. Mtnerd 03:45, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Japanese characters

This article contained the following Japanese characters (in context):

• Shō ichi gō sakusen (捷１号作戦 — Operation Shou No. 1
• Jisaburo Ozawa's force (小沢)
• Takeo Kurita's force (栗田)
• Shoji Nishimura's force (西村)
• Kiyohide Shima's force (志摩)

I removed the characters because I think they don't add anything to the article. This is an English-language encyclopedia, so we can expect few people to read Japanese characters. It is better to provide transliteration instead because that will be accessible to all readers. Gdr 10:24, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)

In general, they are useful because they provide a way for the English/Japanese-bilingual (and I hear there are millions of them in Japan :-) ) to check the accuracy of transliteration, but each only needs to appear once, in the article that introduces the transliterated term. So for instance I would expect to see the Japanese chars in each person's bio, but not elsewhere, while terms specific to this battle should be here. Stan 18:21, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's a good rationale. I'll restore 捷１号作戦 to the text. Gdr 19:07, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)

Thanks Stan and Gdr.Grant65 (Talk) 09:54, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Featured article status?

I'd like to propose this page for featured article status, once the Ecnomus business is settled. There are a couple of things I would like to add but can't find.

• Some criticism of Toyoda's strategy. With the benefit of hindsight it seems to me that his policy of throwing forces away in suicidal battles was stupid. I'd like to quote notable criticism of his plans. (I found his justification for the plan which I think is a better thing to include.)
• Some quotes for the Task Force 34 controversy. Who criticized him and what did they say?

The article also needs a few quotes from eye-witnesses. Gdr 17:35, 2004 Oct 25 (UTC)

OK, I think it's ready, except for the edit war. Can we come to some agreement? I propose the plain and simple

The battle is often considered to be the largest naval battle in history.

as a paragraph in the lead section? Gdr 12:16, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)

I'm happy with that form of words.Grant65 (Talk) 13:09, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to say that I think this article is great would make a fine featured article. →Raul654 05:02, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Where was the landing?

This enormous battle was fought over the US landings on one of the Philippean islands. Why do none of the maps of the battle show where the landings were? --Carnildo 07:01, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See Image:Battle of Leyte map 1.jpg. Gdr 11:15, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)

What was the scale?

None of the maps shows a scale of miles. It's hard to see how close the Japanese fleet came to destroying the landing force without a sense of size.--Carnildo 07:01, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You're welcome to add a scale to the maps. Gdr 11:17, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)

Defacement

It looks like there has been some defacing of the content. [Some vandalism] appears to have been added to the aftermath section.

That's what happens when an article is featured on the Main Page. Gdr 23:00, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)