Browned Off and Bloody-Minded

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Pub Date 12 Mar 2015 | Archive Date 04 Mar 2015

Description

More than three-and-a-half million men served in the British Army during the Second World War, the vast majority of them civilians who had never expected to become soldiers and had little idea what military life, with all its strange rituals, discomforts, and dangers, was going to be like. Alan Allport's rich and luminous social history examines the experience of the greatest and most terrible war in history from the perspective of these ordinary, extraordinary men, who were plucked from their peacetime families and workplaces and sent to fight for King and Country. Allport chronicles the huge diversity of their wartime trajectories, tracing how soldiers responded to and were shaped by their years with the British Army, and how that army, however reluctantly, had to accommodate itself to them. Touching on issues of class, sex, crime, trauma, and national identity, through a colorful multitude of fresh individual perspectives, the book provides an enlightening, deeply moving perspective on how a generation of very modern-minded young men responded to the challenges of a brutal and disorienting conflict.

More than three-and-a-half million men served in the British Army during the Second World War, the vast majority of them civilians who had never expected to become soldiers and had little idea what...


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Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780300170757
PRICE £25.00 (GBP)

Average rating from 4 members


Featured Reviews

The story of World War 2 is often told by the battles, but I do find the story of how any army of amateurs was shaped into a war winning machine fascinating.

My father was conscripted at the age of 18 in 1943 and I had always wondered how I would have coped at that tender age with such a life changing event. Alan Allport’s book goes a long way in explaining what it was like.

The book tells the story of the three-and-a-half million plus men served in the British Army during the Second World War with some very surprising and unusual stories. No stone is left unturned from sexuality to socialism and lot in between.

Packed with memoirs, letters, diaries and interviews the book helps you understand what those men felt when the war monopolised their lives. Don't miss the story of “Dickie” Buckle who joined the Scots Guards in 1940, and won himself the reputation of an exceptionally brave if distinctly unorthodox Scots Guards officer.

If you want the real colour behind those back and white newsreels then read this book.

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