Introduction

The Veterans' Tale

“…33 The creation of an autobiographical text stems from, as James Olney has argued, 'the vital impulse to order that has always caused man to create.' 34 The Veterans' Tale thus posits that penning a war memoir allowed the veteran to shape and order his recollections of the past, imposing pattern and coherency upon experience. The narrativisation and emplotment of memory on paper granted a precious second reading of experience, offering the former serviceman a valuable space for reflection Introduction upon wartime combat.…”

“…Since the war itself, the Second World War has formed an integral part of a well-embedded national 'pleasure-culture of war' in Britain. 68 Interest was intense among post-war generations of youngsters who remained fascinated by the conflict in which their fathers had fought, and lapped up tales of that war with enduring eagerness. This ready-made market for war stories meant that the memoirs of Second World War veterans increasingly offered an enormously attractive commercial prospect to publishers, who began to bring out more and more titles.…”

“…As Francis explains, the 'romantic distractions of the flyer ensured that the wartime RAF was never a closed homosocial world in which masculinity operated independently of a female presence.' 71 Relationships with women prominently studded the memoirs of aircrew veterans, but they were universally woven into all the other veteran narratives too. Women particularly maintained an emotional presence in these accounts of frontline experiences, with veterans recording that letters from wives and sweethearts had a significant impact upon their mood and feelings of ability to cope with war.…”