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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 15:21, 6 November 2011 [1].

HMS Eagle (1918)

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HMS Eagle (1918) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This ship has an interesting history. It was designed as a battleship for Chile before World War I, but was purchased by the British before the end of the war and converted to an aircraft carrier afterwards. It spent most of the interwar period based in China and then fought in the Mediterranean and Atlantic before she was sunk by a German submarine during Operation Pedestal in 1942. The article had a Milhist A-class review last month and should be in pretty good shape.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:36, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk) 12:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I did the first half of this one during the A-class review. I've checked the edits since then and tweaked a bit. - Dank (push to talk) 12:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "en route to Portsmouth to load the latest carrier aircraft to demonstrate at the British Industries Exhibition ...": reword without "demonstrate", please.
    • How does it read now?
  • "Accommodations": It was pointed out to me in another article that the online Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries say that the plural is AmEng; there's no s in BritEng. - Dank (push to talk) 13:37, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Interesting
  • "with its aircraft ...": You use "her" in the previous sentence.
    • Good catch
  • "almost immediately": I recommend you either delete this or replace it with something specific, such as "within a week" (if that's true).
    • Good idea.
  • "but escorted": I think reviewers are going to object to "but" here.
    • The convoy escort is in contrast to the patrolling.
  • "The damage to the ship was mostly confined to the bomb magazines, although two generators were knocked out. The explosion flashed upwards through the port bomb lift and ignited the wing on one Swordfish stowed in the hangar. All but four of the aircraft were damaged by the corrosive salt-water spray system when the fire was doused.": I may be misunderstanding ... it sounds like there was significant damage apart from the bomb magazines. - Dank (push to talk) 15:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I can't really say, but I suspect that the bomb magazines required a lot of work, and not too much to the rest of the ship.
  • "sinking the Italian destroyer Zeffiro and the freighter SS Manzoni, blowing the bow off the destroyer Euro, and two other merchantmen had to be beached before they sank.": nonparallel
    • I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at here, but I broke the sentence in two as I think that reads slightly better.
  • "In September she was joined": "she" dangles.
    • I thought only participles and conversations dangled (amongst non-physical objects anyways), but I added a comma.
      • Hm, it's not a problem now; maybe I was hallucinating or maybe it got fixed. Anyway, per M-W, to dangle is "to occur in a sentence without having a normally expected syntactic relation to the rest of the sentence", but I usually see it in the sense of "lacking a clear connection to the word or phrase it modifies".
  • "These losses were the ship's heaviest in a single mission of any in the war.": These losses were the ship's heaviest in any single mission of the war.
    • Oh my, yes.
  • "she covered another convoy in later that month.": I don't understand the "in".
    • Relict, deleted.
  • "Five of her aircraft were transferred to Illustrious for the attack on Taranto (Operation Judgement), on 11 November while Eagle remained in Alexandria.": ... for an attack on 11 November on Taranto (Operation Judgement) while ...
    • Agreed.
  • "the night of 25/25 November": ?
    • Good catch.
  • "as the crippling of Illustrious by German dive bombers on 11 January meant that Eagle now had sole responsibility for fighter coverage over the fleet.": as Eagle now had sole responsibility for the fleet's fighter coverage after the crippling of Illustrious by German dive bombers on 11 January.
    • Much better.
  • "In order to make room for the fighters ...": In case anyone hassles you about "in order to", it's fine here, and in general at the start of any sentence.
  • "... Eagle was supposed to be transferred to the South Atlantic to hunt for German commerce raiders, but this was cancelled ...": orders were cancelled to transfer Eagle to the South Atlantic to hunt for German commerce raiders
    • I moved the verb to later in the sentence. How does it read?
      • There's a joke about how you can tell that people who are conversing are Germans when you can't hear them (which I can tell since I'm a Germanophile): the listeners spend most of their time staring in blank incomprehension, waiting for the speaker to get to the verb at the end of each sentence. You've gone with: "orders to transfer Eagle to the South Atlantic to hunt for German commerce raiders were cancelled" ... and that's not wrong, exactly, but it's a little Germanic. If you don't like my suggestion, is this any better? "orders were cancelled that would have transferred Eagle to the South Atlantic to hunt for German commerce raiders". - Dank (push to talk) 19:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the Italian shipping": Italian shipping
    • Yes.
  • "Mombasa, Kenya", "Durban, South Africa", "Freetown, Sierra Leone": WP:Checklist#second comma
    • Done.
  • "she was ordered to sea on 29 May to search for a raider in the Indian Ocean. This proved to be unsuccessful and she was ordered ...": she was ordered to sea on 29 May on an unsuccessful search for a raider in the Indian Ocean. She was then ordered
    • Done
  • "but Eagle's orders changed and she was now charged to hunt for ...": but Eagle was now charged with hunting for
    • Agreed.
  • "began searching the South Atlantic on 29 May and was usually accompanied by ...": began searching the South Atlantic on 29 May, usually accompanied by
    • Done.
  • "They discovered the blockade runner Elbe on 6 June which was bombed and sunk by Eagle's Swordfish.": [if this is correct:] Eagle and her Swordfish discovered, bombed and sunk the blockade runner Elbe on 6 June. [if the Swordfish happened to discover the blockade runner, then: Eagle's Swordfish ...]
    • Rephrased, see how it reads.
  • "HACS": This acronym hasn't been defined; I'm guessing it's the High Angle Control System mentioned earlier.
    • Added.
  • "were replaced by 12 manually operated automatic 20 mm Oerlikon light anti-aircraft guns, six in sponsons on each side of the flight deck and the crews of the four-inch AA guns were given ...": second comma.
    • Done
  • "also added": Not wrong, but "also installed" avoids the appearance of redundancy. - Dank (push to talk) 18:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agreed.
  • "The ship transferred 824 Squadron to North Front and loaded 15 Supermarine Spitfire fighters": Does this mean something different than "824 Squadron transferred to North Front"? That is, are you drawing a distinction here that the order came from or through the ship's commander, as opposed to other passages where you simply said the squadron transferred? I think I prefer the simpler version; it doesn't raise the question.
    • Agreed
  • "the cruiser Hermione, and nine destroyers but the operation had to be cancelled ...": second comma.
    • Done.
  • "The ship's engines required repairs upon her return that lasted until 13 March.": Upon her return, the ship's engines required repairs that lasted until 13 March.
  • "After her return, her steering gear required extensive repairs that lasted until the end of April.": So, some repairs lasted longer than 13 March, right?
    • No, I had to clarify that two further deliveries were made in late March, then the steering gear needed repairs.
  • "Later in the month, the ship provided air cover for another convoy, Operation Harpoon, one of two (the other being Operation Vigorous) that departed for Malta simultaneously, but from opposite directions.": ... another convoy, Operation Harpoon, which departed for Malta at the same time as the Operation Vigorous convoy did, from the opposite direction.
    • Done.
  • "Eagle was one of three carriers tasked with covering Operation Pedestal, the other two being Victorious and Indomitable. She carried ...": Eagle covered Operation Pedestal along with the carriers Victorious and Indomitable. Eagle carried
    • Slightly rephrased. Together with works better, IMO, than along with.
  • Done. - Dank (push to talk) 19:05, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 23:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Are there no free images of her sinking? I found plenty online, and it seems that something must be usable bby now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:56, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's tiny, but I swapped one from the IWM in for the other Pedestal photo.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Seems a really good, clear, high quality article. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:53, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]


SupportComments [by Kirk]

  • Per our discussion at Hermes A-review, please summarize the air group composition in the design section and update the infobox so the numbers match her service history.
    • The numbers will rarely match for various reasons and the RN rarely, if ever, specified the exact composition of a ship's air group. The level and type of detail that you like in the Japanese carrier articles is only available for RN carriers at specific times, which are generally given in the text.
      • It appears to me that in the 20's they had a standard composition then during the war something happened so this went out the window - maybe you can cite more explicitly the reason the British aircraft carries didn't have a standard composition? If your sources don't help I wouldn't sweat it but I think you mentioned they were desperately short of aircraft.
        • It's all related to the fact that the Fleet Air Arm was still under the RAF's control until, IIRC, '38, and was "low man on the totem pole" for funding, etc. So the RAF didn't make any real effort to develop modern aircraft for the carriers and didn't buy enough of those that it did have to fully equip the existing carriers. Things were better in the 20s because Courageous and Glorious weren't completed until the end of the decade, so Eagle and Hermes were often nearly at capacity. After those two big carriers were commissioned, those two were usually at 1/2 to 2/3 capacity and rarely embarked a fighter unit unless one of the big three was being refitted or something. But I'm afraid that all of this is outside the scope of the article except to mention as an aside or something if I can find a nice succinct source to quote.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the prose she starts with of 24 aircraft, then 21, later 9-18 Swordfish at the beginning of the war and the found 3 Sea Gladiators and at that point I can't follow her air group very well. The Spitfire to Malta part is also a little confusing since she flew/took 32 planes to Malta with 6 Sea Hurricanes on board - she had 38 planes on board at one point?
    • This discussion has shown that I do need to explain the whole process for ferrying aircraft in some more detail otherwise people won't understand how the number of ferry aircraft can exceed the ship's capacity.
      • Thanks.
  • Are you quoting this from the source? Her nominal aircraft capacity was 25 large aircraft or 30 small ones... I don't understand what this means - what's a large vs. small aircraft? And as I mentioned above, the numbers don't add up, maybe nominal isn't the right word in that sentence. Kirk (talk) 15:22, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • It seems fairly intuitive that you can squeeze a larger number of smaller items (aircraft in this case) into a fixed space like a ship's hangar, than larger items. Large and small are relative and cannot be absolutes.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:36, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'd prefer "25 to 30 aircraft". Does that work for you two? - Dank (push to talk) 18:04, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Works for me, I'll add the bit about the ferried aircraft once I get home and can access my sources.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • Thanks. Kirk (talk) 22:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
              • Ignorable comment: I think instead of large or small aircraft you should consider specific types of aircraft instead of large/small and incorporate something about the RAF control leading to not buying enough aircraft which explains why unlike US carriers British ones had such antiquated, incomplete and inadequate air groups. But between this and Hermes I've given you enough grief on this topic. Kirk (talk) 01:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
              • Added the bit about how they loaded and stored the ferried aircraft. Does that clear things up enough?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                • Partially assembled vs final assembly: was it just the wings and did final assembly occur before they left port or on the way to Malta? I was trying to visualize how they crammed these on the flight deck.
                  • All my source says is "partly assembled–with wings attached and undercarriage lowered. The ship spent four days in Gibraltar before departing, so probably before they left port. I've seen picture of the ferry trips to Malta with the fighters lined up in a row at the rear of the flight deck.
                    • Ok good enough.
                • Spitfire: which dimension was too big to fit on the lifts; the aircraft dimensions (30x37) appear to be smaller than the larger lift (48x47). Same goes for the Hurricane (32x40), although in that case you specified the wings didn't fit. Maybe you meant the hangar (or hangar portion of the lift) which you said was only 33 ft wide in spots? Kirk (talk) 17:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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