Talk:Special Engineer Detachment

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Special Engineer Detachment/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Hawkeye7 (talk · contribs) 01:51, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 04:56, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Will review this week. Hog Farm _Talk 04:56, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

• "In addition, there was an authorization for 75 enlisted women on 15 June 1943, which grew to 370 on 31 December 1945." - this phrasing implies that this 370 figure is in addition to the 6,032, but "Later the authorization for WAC officers and enlisted women was included in the bulk authorization for military personnel, except that a maximum of 370 enlisted women was authorized by Headquarters, Army Service Forces" from Personnel, 7.4 reads like a statement that of the 6,032 up to 370 could be enlisted women. Am I mis-reading this?

  Y You are correct! I have re-worded it to remove the ambiguity. The first six WAACs arrived at Los Alamos in April 1943; the WAAC became the WAC in June. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:12, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

• ". He was succeeded by Lieutenant (later Captain) (William A. Barger in March 1944.[17][19]" - something has gone wrong here with the paranthesis

  Y Stray close parenthesis. On reflection, deleted the parenthetical text as well. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:41, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

• " offered $6,000 equivalent to $96,747 in 2024 to equivalent to $40 in 2024 to participate" - ?

  Y Some stray text. Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:41, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

• A nitpick, but the fact that the Crossroads test took place at Bikini Atoll is only mentioned in the lead

  Y Added to the body. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:41, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Spot checks

• "In January 1945, the Corps of Engineers activated the 9812th Technical Service Unit, and most of the enlisted personnel at the Clinton Engineer Works (CEW), the Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) and the Los Alamos Laboratory were transferred to the new unit on 1 February. At Los Alamos, however, the Military Police Corps, Women's Army Corps and service personnel remained part of the 8th Service Command's 4817th Service Command Unit" - sourced to Jones p. 361; verified in source
• "The demands of the Manhattan Project for specialized skills grew inexorably. From an initial allotment of 62 officers when the Manhattan District was activated on 13 August 1942, the authorization grew to 699 officers on 31 October 1945. The initial authorization of enlisted men was 334 on 22 May 1943, and there was a series of increasing authorizations until 31 October 1945, when a peak strength of 6,032 enlisted personnel was authorized. In addition, there was an authorization for 75 enlisted women on 15 June 1943, which grew to 370 on 31 December 1945.[10] The Manhattan Project reached peak strength of 4,976 enlisted personnel on 1 November 1945, but this also included Military Police Corps, Women's Army Corps and service personnel as well as scientific and technical staff.[2]" - I wonder if you have the citations here mixed up? [2] is 7.3-7.4 of the Personnel work is [2] but instead those pages support the information cited to [10], pp. S12-S13 of Personnel. I'm seeing the 4,976 figure on p. 7.5

• Still pending a response to this question. Hog Farm _Talk 01:53, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Should be okay now. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:13, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

• "and the authorization was lowered to 2,203 on 9 December 1946" - OK, sourced to Personnel document p. 7.3-7.4

Through the demographics section; will finish soon. Apologies for the delay in getting to this - work was much busier than I expected this week. Hog Farm _Talk 01:09, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Three more comments added above, none of which are particularly significant. There is also the pagination matter from the middle spot check still unresolved. Hog Farm _Talk 03:25, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by JuniperChill (talk) 08:57, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that John D. Hoffman of the Special Engineer Detachment was awarded the Soldier's Medal, the US Army's highest non-combat decoration and the only one given to a member of the Manhattan District? Source: "John Hoffman was awarded the Soldiers Medal, the Army's highest non-combat decoration and the only one given by the Manhattan Project."
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Natal Native Pioneer Corps 2

Improved to Good Article status by Hawkeye7 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 456 past nominations.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:21, 4 February 2026 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Article passed GA recently, length is good. Copyvio tool highlights a couple sentences that could be better phrased... would it be possible to work some more on paraphrasing? Also, hook fact is technically not supported; the article says "only one awarded to a member of the Manhattan District." I'm not sure if Project and District are synonyms here, but ideally the phrasing in both hook and article should be the same.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:18, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

• I've adjusted the hook to say "Manhattan District". This was the military component of the Manhattan Project. See the article for details. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:49, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

• Thank you. Any chance of rephrasing some of the paraphrasing concerns flagged? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:52, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

• I made some tweaks to the wording but there is nothing that can be done about proper nouns. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:14, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

  Of course. Your edits have dealt with the phrases that concerned me - thank you! Good to go! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:19, 25 February 2026 (UTC)