Correspondence, Camaraderie, and Community: The Second World War for a Mother and Son
Year: 2018
Type: preprint
Abstract: Erle Sinclair Miller enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in 1940. While his initial attitude towards the conflict was one of personal invincibility and an eagerness for action, much of Miller's Second World War experience was spent in five prisoner of war camps, enduring physical as well as psychological hardship. The following thesis engages with the contents of the Miller Collection, a series of 297 letters, two prisoner of war journals, one flying log book and one scrapbook, in order to reveal the details of a young man's experiences of war and the critical relationship he retained with his mother in Canada. The key themes in this analysis, that of identity, community, and coping, are drawn out in each of the following three chapters, and offer an intimate appreciation of the impact that the Second World war had on families, sharper insight into the dynamics of the RCAF and prisoner of war experiences, the intersection of communities of war, and the role of mothers on the home front.
Author: Emily Gann
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4244367609