Thesis

'I shall have to learn to live all over again’: injury, disability and relationships in the lives of Second World War servicemen

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Awarding institution
  • University of Strathclyde
Date of award
  • 2022
Thesis identifier
  • T16272
Person Identifier (Local)
  • 201764365
Qualification Level
Qualification Name
Department, School or Faculty
Abstract
  • In this thesis I will examine the experiences of servicemen who were injured and disabled by service in the armed forces during the Second World War. I follow the serviceman from the site of injury to hospitalisation, rehabilitation and finally to life after war service. In addition, I explore the relationships servicemen formed at each stage of their recovery and what these meant to men. Throughout this thesis I adopt a person-centred approach by focusing on the actual lived experiences of servicemen, the nurses who cared for them and the women who entered relationships with them. In doing so, I make use of a range of sources such as my own interviews, previously conducted oral histories, private papers, hospital magazines and pension records. The main themes of the thesis are gender, masculinity, disability, and relationships. Relationships presents itself as a dominant theme throughout this thesis and is its most original finding. Interactions and relationships played a role in men’s experiences at every stage of their journey, from injury to hospital and surgery to rehabilitation and finally finding work as a disabled man. The importance of men’s relationships appears in several different contexts, friendship with comrades, sex and intimacy, shame, and embarrassment from public reactions to them and the opportunities afforded to them in the workplace. Interactions and relationships ultimately shaped men’s experience and memory of wartime disability. Those men who had strong support systems in the form of surgeons, comrades, romantic partners, family, and work had more positive experiences of wartime disability.
Advisor / supervisor
  • Newlands, Emma
  • Kelly, Laura, 1986-
Resource Type
Note
  • This thesis was previously held under moratorium from 1st June 2022 until 1st June 2024.
DOI
Date Created
  • 2021

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