Men at War: Loving, Lusting, Fighting, Remembering 1939-1945

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There was far too much about the author's interests in the Second World War as a hobbyist, which really wasn't very interesting. As the Second World War moves beyond living memory and its last veterans leave us, we are in danger of losing our opportunity to understand the reality behind the conflict’s myths, machines and iconography. As the Second World War recedes from living memory, critical reflections like this – about what we do with our inheritance, both the one we are given and the one we choose – stand to become all the more important. With rare exceptions such as bank holidays, the book group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at 7.

Turner uses his own cultural memory of the war – from his grandfather’s religiously motivated conscientious objection, to a childhood fascination with planes – as signposts for a deeper enquiry into the lives and sexualities of perhaps the most celebrated generation of British men. In this book, Turner looks beyond the increasingly retrogressive and jingoistic ideal of a Britain that never was to discover a much richer history.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. This certainly confirms his knowledge of the period and gives some historical colour and substance but if, like me, you aren't really interested in the engineering then it can be a bit of a struggle at times. Lying in bed beneath Airfix bombers and fighter planes suspended from his bedroom ceiling, he would often think about the men that might sit in their cockpits, and whether he could ever be one of them. For a queer kid growing up under Section 28 and a new wave of Second World War mythologisation, history was a fraught country for self-exploration.

Lying in bed beneath Airfix fighter planes suspended from his ceiling, he would think about the men that might sit in their cockpits, and whether he could ever be one of them. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Windows users should also consider upgrading to Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge, or switching to Firefox or Chrome.

Men at War is a thoughtful, empathetic and necessary examination of the impact of the Second World War on British culture.

I thoroughly enjoyed this sensitive, at times tragic, story of love, lust, and sexual confusion among soldiers seaman and even air-aces of WWII. It's the perfect riposte to any modern-day blowhard who makes sweeping claims about what our grandparents did or didn't fight for. Insightful and affecting account of the people whose lives and love lives have been forgotten since World War 2 - to the detriment of them and to us. During a battlefield tour school trip, he experienced the agony of sleeping in a bunk just feet away from his teenage crush, hoping for contact while surrounded by a history that fascinated him. In Men at War , Turner looks beyond the increasingly retrogressive and jingoistic ideal of a Britain that never was to discover a much richer history.Turner strips away the hero worship, the bravado and veneer of 'derring do' to show us some very human portraits of men at war. As the conflict moves beyond living memory and the last veterans leave us, we are in danger of missing the opportunity to gain a true understanding of this rich history. The real strength of the book is in how it demonstrates the power of desire as a driving force: in intellectual curiosity, national myth-making and in writing history. Comparing British memory of the war with that of other countries, Turner asks why British soldiers are not remembered alongside Japanese and German men as potential perpetrators of sexual violence, despite evidence of these crimes during the Allied occupation of Germany and postwar colonial uprisings. The army which fought for the Allies was largely composed of conscripts who were not necessarily respectful of military mores and martial manners.