Comics, the Holocaust and Hiroshima

Comics, the Holocaust and Hiroshima breaks new ground by arguing that comics have a dual role as sources of cataclysm between 1939 and 1945. First for historians to gauge awareness of the Holocaust and second through close analysis, of Paroles d'Etoiles in Vichy France and Barefoot Gen in Hiroshima, as testimonies of childhood emotions, experiences and memories. Calling for an extension of the range of source material relating to persecution, genocide and the atomic bomb from 1939 to 1945, comics are posited as an agent to build on the scholarship of new cultural history, historiography, memory and trauma studies. These fields connect through the shared ground of cultural record, which can be either deliberate/explicit or incidental reference. The comics form is a flexible one with potential to explore the space between reality and representation, with visuals working as iconic translations while narrative structure relies on readers' mental contribution

A ‘Lack of Moral Fibre’ in Royal Air Force Bomber Command and Popular Culture

Royal Air Force aircrew endured mental and physical stresses during bombing operations. Their chances of completing a tour of operations unscathed were around one in four, and many were aware the chances were slim. Some who refused to fly were accused of ‘lacking moral fibre’ (LMF). Although this was not a medical diagnosis it is frequently viewed through the lens of mental health and reactions to trauma and it has become a powerful and important cultural phenomenon. This article re-examines LMF in the culture of the wartime Royal Air Force, before considering how and why LMF is remembered by veterans and in popular histories since the war

The many behind the few : the lives and emotions of Erks and WAAFs of RAF bomber command 1939-1945

This thesis examines the lives and emotions of male and female ground personnel who served in Bomber Command during the Second World War. Histories of Bomber Command usually focus on the flyers, or on the strategy of the bombing campaign. The experiences of four fifths of the service, the ground personnel, are often neglected. They are frequently reduced to two dimensional stereotypes, as the ‘Erk’ who serviced the aircraft, or the WAAF ‘chop girl’ whose sexual promiscuity presaged death. The RAF assigned personnel to different trades ranging from the most technical to the most mundane. The central theme of this thesis is the gendered hierarchy of trades within Bomber Command. It was constructed in part by widespread beliefs about fear, heroism and stoicism, the interconnected discourses of class and gender, and specific quirks of RAF culture. These included its trade selection process, dialect, pay scale, and trades’ perceived importance to the raison d’être of Bomber Command. The hierarchy is important in explaining the experiences of ground personnel, as some personnel were overstretched while others felt that they were not ‘doing their bit.’ Bomber Command servicemen and women were part of a community that experienced high rates of air crew loss. This thesis also discusses their emotional responses to service life and the treatment by the RAF medical services of those who suffered breakdowns. In examining non-combatant military personnel who served on operational stations but were also part of the home front, my thesis will inform and bring together different areas of study. It gives a voice to an important but previously underrepresented group and in doing so, contributes to the histories of the RAF, emotions, military medicine and psychiatry, as well as understandings of the wartime experience, work and citizenship

Dominion cartoon satire as trench culture narratives: complaints, endurance and stoicism

Although Dominion soldiers’ Great War field publications are relatively well known, the way troops created cartoon multi-panel formats in some of them has been neglected as a record of satirical social observation. Visual narrative humour provides a ‘bottom-up’ perspective for journalistic observations that in many cases capture the spirit of the army in terms of stoicism, buoyed by a culture of internal complaints. Troop concerns expressed in the early comic strips of Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders and British were similar. They shared a collective editorial purpose of morale boosting among the ranks through the use of everyday narratives that elevated the anti-heroism of the citizen soldier, portrayed as a transnational everyman in the service of empire. The regenerative value of disparagement humour provided a redefinition of courage as the very act of endurance on the Western Front