Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T07:18:37.836Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Civilians in Uniform”: Class and Politics in the British Armed Forces, 1939–19451

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2011

Geoffrey Field
Geoffrey Field
Affiliation:
Purchase College, SUNY
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The essay examines the British army's transformation from a small professional force into a mass conscript army between 1939 and 1945. Battlefield defeats and criticism of the nation's conduct of the war acted as a stimulus to reform in the early years. Examining such areas as officer selection, discipline, and the expansion of army education services (ABCA), the essay shows how the military adapted to the recruitment of millions of “civilians in uniform” and in some instances worked to contain or resist change. Special attention is given to class conflicts that arose between officers and “other ranks” and situations where perceived indifference to recruits' basic rights provoked protests and strikes, including protests over slow demobilization in 1946. A final section analyzes the role of ABCA and the forces press in creating a space for political discussion; the radical views prevalent among British servicemen; and the contradictions between the official ban on political debate in the forces, the rhetoric of “a people's war,” and the troops' growing focus on postwar reconstruction and the General Election of 1945.

Type
Special Feature: Labor and the Military
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 80 , Issue 1 , Fall 2011 , pp. 121 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

2. Winter, D., Death's Men: Soldiers of the Great War (London, 1978)Google Scholar; Sheffield, G.D., Leadership in the Trenches: Officer-man Relations in the British Army in the Era of the First World War (London, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the army in the Second World War there is the excellent study by Crang, J.A., The British Army and the People's War 1939–1945 (Manchester, 2000)Google Scholar.

3. Sir James Grigg admitted in the Commons in November 1943 that soldiers had been used thirteen times during strikes and that any soldiers who declined were subject to disciplinary procedures. PD (Commons) vol. 393, Nov. 23, 1943.

4. P.J. Wainwright, “The National Service Debate. Government Conscription and the Peace Movement in Britain, 1936–1942” (Ph.D. Diss. Stanford University, 1993); Broad, R., Conscription in Britain, 1939–1964: The Militarisation of a Generation (London, 2006)Google Scholar.

5. Daily Worker, Dec. 10, 1940. Some 324,000 men were enlisted in the army between June and August 1940, too many for the training system to absorb and before the military could resupply after the crippling equipment losses in the French campaign.

6. J.A. Crang, The British Army and the People's War, chap. 1. Also, Vernon, P. and Parry, J.B., Personnel Selection in the British Forces (London, 1949)Google Scholar. Some 700,000 recruits passed through this system; job placements and job satisfaction improved. But after the war, once the manpower crisis in the service was over, the traditional regimental system was restored.

7. However, volunteers joined the Home Guard in droves: MacKenzie, S.P., Home Guard: A Military and Political History (Oxford, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. On reactions to basic training: Imperial War Museum Archives [IWM]: N. Chaston (microfilm); C. Parker ms.; H. Berry (microfilm); L. A. Roebuck ms.; R. K. Ellis (microfilm). Mass-Observation Archive, File Report [M-O A, FR] 1485: “Basis of Political Trends in the Army,” (Nov. 1942); Ellis, John, The Sharp End: The Fighting Man in World War II (New York, 1980)Google Scholar, 15.

9. French, D., Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War Against Germany (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar, 193.

10. M-O A, FR 836: “An Army Depot,” (Aug. 1941); M-O A, FR 1105: “Morale in Donnington,” (March 1942); M-O A FR 747: “Civilian Queries about Army Life and Organisation,” (June 1941); M-O A FR 886: “Civilian Attitudes to the Navy Compared to the RAF and Army” (Sept. 1941).

11. Streicher, H., “David Low and the Sociology of Caricature,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 8 (1965–1966)Google Scholar; Nally, W., “The Triumph of Colonel Blimp,” Tribune, April 30, 1943Google Scholar; Lewis, G.K., “Blimp's Successor,” Tribune Nov. 12, 1943Google Scholar.

12. “Cato,” Guilty Men (1940), Penguin edition 1998, 14.

13. D. French, Raising Churchill's Army.

14. Hoggart, R., A Sort of Clowning (Oxford, 1990), 29Google Scholar; Colville, J., The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries 1939–55 (London, 1985), 451–2Google Scholar.

15. Otley, C.B., “Militarism and the Social Affiliations of the British Army Elite,” in Armed Forces and Society, ed. van Doorn, J. (The Hague, 1968)Google Scholar; idem., “The Social Origins of British Army Officers,” Sociological Review 18 (1970)Google Scholar; idem., “The Educational Background of British Army Officers,” Sociology (May 1973)Google Scholar. A high percentage of upper-level officers were from landed or military families; relatively few came from families in business.

16. For a scathing attack on the officer corps that sold over 37,000 copies in fifteen months, see “Boomerang” (pseudonym for Alan Wood), Bless ‘Em All: An Analysis of the Morale, Efficiency and Leadership of the British Army (London, 1942)Google Scholar.

17. D. French, Raising Churchill's Army, 163.

18. de la P. Garforth, F.I., “War Office Selection Boards (O.C.T.U.),” Journal of Occupational Psychology 19 (1945)Google Scholar; Morris, B.S., “Officer Selection in the British Army 1942–45,” Journal of Occupational Psychology 23 (1949)Google Scholar; “A New Way to Choose Our Army Officers,” Picture Post Sept. 19, 1942Google Scholar; Ponting, C., 1940: Myth and Reality (Chicago, 1993)Google Scholar, 143; Grigg, E. in PD (Commons), Feb. 19, 1942Google Scholar; J.A. Crang, The British Army and the People's War, chaps. 2, 3—specifically, p. 47–49 for the efforts to remove older and less competent officers. Crang points out (p. 37) that in a 1943 survey sample of recruits selected for officer training, some twenty-five percent had gone to “public schools”; in a 1945 survey sample it was roughly a third.

19. Brooke, A., War Diaries 1939–45: Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke, edited by Danchev, A. and Todman, D. (London, 2001)Google Scholar, p. 243, entry for March 31, 1942.

20. The Times Jan. 15, 1941. Also, R.C. Bingham to B. Liddell Hart June 8, 1938; May 24 and June 2, 1939 Liddell Hart Correspondence 1/73, Liddell Hart Military Archives, King's College, London University.

21. PD (Commons), Feb. 19, 1942. The Times Jan. 24, Jan. 28, Jan 17, 1942.

22. For example, “Boomerang” (pseud.), Bless ‘Em All.

23. Research and Analysis Report 617, “Morale in the British Armed Forces,” March 21, 1942; National Archives (Washington) O.S.S; also, Anon., “The Creation of a Class,” Horizon Sept. 1941. The American analysis seems to have been influenced by “Socialist Subaltern,” New Statesman March 8, 1941Google Scholar.

24. Crang, The British Army and the People's War, 26.

25. P. Vernon and J. B. Parry, Personnel Selection in the British Forces, chap. 4; F.I. de la P. Garforth, “War Office Selection Boards (O.C.T.U.)”; B.S. Morris, “Officer Selection in the British Army 1942–45.” NA:WO 277/16. “The Second World War, 1939–45: Army Morale” by Lieut.-Colonel J. H. Sparrow (War Office 1950) mentions that although no comprehensive figures existed for the educational background of officers commissioned during the war, a sample of 1,218 candidates accepted for training for commissions in July and August 1944 included thirty-four percent from public schools, sixty-two percent from state and state-aided schools; and the rest from independent non-grant-aided secondary schools. Tuck, G.N., “The Army's Use of Psychology during the War,” Occupational Psychology 20 (1946)Google ScholarPubMed; Ungerson, B., The Second World War 1939–45: Army Personnel Selection (London, 1953)Google Scholar.

26. Crang, The British Army and the People's War, 35. On Churchill's pressure: Addison, P., Churchill on the Home Front 1900–1955 (London, 1992), 352–4Google Scholar.

27. R. Hoggart, A Sort of Clowning, 9.

28. The most important were The Soldier's Welfare: Notes for Officers (1941) and Comrades in Arms (1942).

29. On the social scene in Cairo, headquarters of operations for the Middle East: Cooper, Artemis, Cairo in the War, 1939–45 (London, 1989)Google Scholar.

30. Captain X [Shebbeare, William], A Soldier Looks Ahead (London, 1944)Google Scholar; also, Harrisson, Tom, “The British Soldier: Changing Attitudes and Ideas,” British Journal of Psychiatry 35, 2 (1945)Google Scholar; idem, “His Private War-aim,” New Statesman July 17, 1943Google Scholar. See also philosopher Richard Wollheim's recollections: “Fifty Years On,” London Review of Books 13, 12 (June 23, 1994)Google Scholar.

31. Raven, S., “Perish by the Sword” in The Establishment, ed. Thomas, H. (London, 1959)Google Scholar.

32. David, Saul, Mutiny at Salerno—An Injustice Exposed (London, 1995)Google Scholar.

33. On the Clayton affair: PD (Commons), June 30; July 1, July 6, 1943. Home Intelligence comments in NA: INF 1/292, May 11–18, 1943; June 29-July 5, 1943. Also, Daily Mirror, July 7, Nov 23, 1943; “Are Courts Martial Unfair?” Tribune Nov. 5, 1943.

34. Case of Gunner Blunden: PD (Commons) Sept. 21, Oct. 12, 1943.

35. Spector, R.J., Freedom for the Forces (London, 1947), 19–20Google Scholar. PD (Commons) Nov. 7, 27, 1945 (Military Detention Barracks). See also: V. Scannell, Argument of Kings for his sadistic treatment in a detention barracks in North Africa.

36. Englander, D., “Mutinies and Military Morale” in The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War, ed. Strachan, H. (Oxford, 1998)Google Scholar.

37. “Democritus,” What's Wrong With The Army? (London, 1942)Google Scholar, 47; “Citizenship and the Army,” The Observer Nov. 30, 1941Google Scholar; Capt. X (Shebbeare, William), A Soldier Looks Ahead (London, 1944)Google Scholar. Army Welfare Committees were established in March 1947 empowered to make collective complaints for rankers.

38. Rubin, G.R., Durban 1942: A British Troopship Revolt (London, 1992)Google Scholar.

39. Tatchell, P., Democratic Defence: A Non-Nuclear Alternative (London, 1985)Google Scholar; James, Lawrence, Mutiny in the British and Commonwealth Forces 1797–1956 (London, 1987)Google Scholar. Allport, A., Demobbed: Coming Home After the Second World War (New Haven, 2009), 12–15Google Scholar describes the volatile mood on several ships and “strikes” on HMS Javelin and HGMS Northway at the war's end. Also, Glenton, Bill, Mutiny in Force X (London, 1986)Google Scholar on a mutiny aboard HMS Lothian in 1944.

40. Rothstein, A., The Soldiers’ Strikes of 1919 (London, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41. The case was in India: M-O A FR 2283 “Forces Views on Demobilisation” (Sept. 1945).

42. TUC Annual Report 1945; J.H. Sparrow, Tour of India and S.E. Asia Command, quoted by Allport, A., Demobbed: Coming Home After the Second World War (New Haven, 2009)Google Scholar, 38. Also, Capt. Bellengen, “I accuse Mr. Amery,” letter to Sunday Pictorial Aug. 6, 1944, on low troop morale in Southeast Asia. In Cabinet Ernest Bevin (Foreign Secretary) and George Isaacs (Minister of Labour) did believe that the service troop estimates (especially the RAF) were inflated and tried to reduce the numbers, but the TUC vote was considered a “slap in the face” by many servicemen who had just voted Labour.

43. Saville, J., The Politics of Continuity: British Foreign Policy and the Labour Government 1945–46 (London, 1993)Google Scholar; Fyrth, J., An Indian Landscape 1944–1946 The Socialist History Society, Occasional Papers, Series 12 (2001)Google Scholar.

44. Duncan, D., Mutiny in the RAF: The Air Force Strikes of 1946 The Socialist History Society, Occasional paper Series No. 8 (London, 1999)Google Scholar estimates that the strikes in the Middle and Far East affected some 60 units and 50,000 men. Some lasted a few hours, others up to four days.

45. L. James, Mutiny in the British and Commonwealth Forces, 175.

46. Kisch, R., The Days of the Good Soldiers (London, 1985)Google Scholar; James, Mutiny in the British Commonwealth Forces, 175; PD (Commons) Nov. 21, 1945, Nov. 27, 1948; Daily Herald Jan. 29, Jan. 30, 1946. In India five days of rioting involving 3,000 Indian troops broke out in Bombay; other troubles soon spread to Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi.

47. Duncan (one of the RAF Drigh Road group) points to Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, in charge of Southeast Asia Command as especially insistent upon punishment. Mutiny in the RAF, 66.

48. In addition to Duncan's account: Pritt, D.N., The Autobiography of D.N. Pritt vol. 2 Brasshats and Bureaucrats (London, 1966)Google Scholar; R.J. Spector, Freedom for the Forces; Saville, 'J., Memoirs from the Left (London, 2003)Google Scholar. The electrical and engineering unions and the London Trades Council were very active in Attwood's support, as was the National Council for Civil Liberties.

49. Rubin, G.R., Murder, Mutiny and the Military: British Court Martial Cases 1940–1966 (London, 2005)Google Scholar, chap.7; R. Kisch, The Days of the Good Soldiers, 153–7; Bayly, C. and Harper, T., Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 219–20Google Scholar; M-O A FR 2425 (October 1946). PD (Commons) Oct. 10, 12, 1946. On the public response to Muar: M-OA FR 2425 (October 1946).

50. D.N. Pritt, Brasshats and Bureaucrats, 256–65; Meltzer, A., I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels (Edinburgh, 1996)Google Scholar. French, D., Military Identities: The Regimental System, the British Army and the British People, c. 1870–2000 (Oxford, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 201.

51. McKibbin, R., Parties and People: England 1914–1951 (Oxford, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 4; for a contrary view that plays down wartime radicalization: Fielding, S., Thompson, P., and Tiratsoo, N., England Arise! The Labour Party and Popular Politics in 1940s Britain (Manchester, 1995)Google Scholar.

52. King's Regulations #541 sanctioned political debate but not where a soldier identified with a political party or circulated party literature; more sweeping was #40, which subsumed politics under “acts, conduct . . . to the prejudice of good order and military discipline”; in addition, Army Council Instruction #1527 of 1944 dealt explicitly with servicemen allowing their names to be published for political purposes, signing public petitions, circulars, and appeals dealing with political matters.

53. Mass-Observer Denis Argent formed a Marxist discussion group in his bomb disposal unit and attended Communist party public meetings: Malcolmson, P. and Malcolmson, R. (eds.), A Soldier in Bedfordshire 1941–42: The Diary of Denis Argent (Bedforshire, 2009)Google Scholar.

54. Lawn, M., “The British Way and Purpose: The Spirit of the Age in Curriculum History,” Curriculum Studies 21 (1989)Google Scholar.

55. Butler, R.A., The Art of the Possible (Boston, 1972)Google Scholar, 129; Wyatt, W., Into This Dangerous World (London, 1952)Google Scholar, 57. R. Hoggart, A Sort of Clowning, 62; Thompson, E.P., “A Question of Manners,” New Society July 11, 1974Google Scholar; idem, “A State of Blackmail” in Writing by Candlelight (London, 1980)Google Scholar.

56. Mackenzie, S. P., Politics and Military Morale: Current Affairs and Citizenship Education in the British Army, 1914–1950 (Oxford, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Summerfield, P., “Education and Politics in the British Armed Forces in the Second World War,” International Review of Social History 26, 2 (1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hawkins, T.H. and Brimble, L.J.F., Adult Education: The Record of the British Army (London, 1947)Google Scholar; Wilson, N.S., Education in the Forces, 1939–1946 (London, 1949)Google Scholar. On the ABCA Play Unit: Watson, D., “Where do we go from here? Education, theatre and politics in the British Army, 1939–45,” Labour History Review 59 (Winter 1994)Google Scholar.

57. M-O A FR 963, “Report on Army Education, ABCA Scheme” (Nov. 16, 1941). Also, M-O A FR 948, “Report on ABCA” (Nov. 1941).

58. As Mackenzie shows, a survey of 5,000 soldiers in Britain in late 1943 found that sixty percent regarded ABCA as successful and ten percent as adequate, while of the 8,500 men and women who filled out another questionnaire, some seventy-eight percent found the discussions interesting. S.P. Mackenzie, Politics and Military Morale, 184–5.

59. IWM 80/5/1, H.A. Wilson War Diary, Aug 2, 1943.

60. Addison, P., Churchill on the Home Front 1900–1955 (London, 1992)Google Scholar, 346, 354.

61. Among them General Alan Brooke, Commander of the Home Forces, and General Adam, the Adjutant-General.

62. NA: INF 1/292 Weekly report for Dec. 1–8, 1942. Also, PD (Commons) March 16, 1943. Also, Lawson, Hugh, “Service Regulations Must be Changed,” Tribune Aug. 20, 1943Google Scholar; Lance Corporal Hunt, F.G., “ABCA Alone Won't Do,” Tribune Jan. 12, 1945Google Scholar.

63. IWM: 88/36/1, J. Newmark correspondence. Newmark (a clerk in the Ordnance Corps in Egypt) who wrote and edited a wall newspaper for his unit, writes to his wife: “I wanted to avoid officers taking part in it and let the men feel it was entirely their own paper,” Nov 24, 1942.

64. Mackenzie, S.P., “Vox Populi: British Army Newspapers in the Second World War,” Journal of Contemporary History 24 (1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anglo, Michael, Service Newspapers of the Second World War (London, 1977)Google Scholar. In some by-elections challenging the political truce and the Tory party, servicemen stood as candidates for the radical Common Wealth party: for example, Lieut. Hugh Lawson who was elected for Skipton, Yorkshire, in 1944; earlier he had acted as a socialist “Prime Minister” in a forces “mock parliament” on Gilbralter.

65. Warwick Charlton, who had previously worked for the Daily Sketch, began duplicating news sheets and in September 1941 a daily, the Eighth Army News, and then a year later Crusader, a weekly. He received strong backing from Montgomery. In Tunis in early 1943 Hugh Cudlipp, previously editor of the Sunday Pictorial, began producing Union Jack and recruited onto its staff William Connor (“Cassandra”) and Peter Wilson of the Daily Mirror. Cudlipp's protector was Harold MacMillan. Frank Owen of the Evening Standard was enlisted by Lord Mountbatten to edit S.E.A.C. for forces in the India and Burma theaters. These men had been among the most hard-hitting Fleet Street journalists.

66. The various Women's Parliaments, for example, and the People's Convention of Jan. 1941.

67. IWM: H.A. Wilson ms, April 23, 1942.

68. R. Kisch, The Days of the Good Soldiers; Davidson, B., “The Cairo Forces Parliament,” Labour History Review 55 (Winter 1990)Google Scholar; “The Troops Parliament by One of its Ministers,” Tribune May 26, 1944Google Scholar; “The Troops Parliament: The Aftermath by One of its Ministers,” Tribune June 30, 1944Google Scholar; PD (Commons) Oct. 4, 1944. Also, Moore, Bill and Barnsby, George (eds.), The Anti-Fascist People's Front in the Armed Forces: The Communist Contribution, Our History pamphlet 81 (Feb. 1990)Google Scholar.

69. Mackenzie, S.P., The Colditz Myth (Oxford, 2004), 168–9Google Scholar.

70. M-OA FR 161 “Some opinion trends among the forces” (March 1943).

71. NA: WO 32/15772 Aug.-Oct 1943; also report on Egypt Feb-April 1943; report on India Feb-April, 1943; M-OA FR 1617 “Some Opinion Trends Among the Forces” (March 1943). Also, IWM 96/35/1 A. S. Harris, Royal Artillery, correspondence. Oct 26, 1942; May 19, 1945.

72. NA: WO 32/15772 India, March-May 1944.

73. Slater, E. and Woodside, M., Patterns of Marriage. A Study of Marriage Relationships in the Urban Working Classes (London, 1951)Google Scholar, based on research carried out in 1942–43.

74. Alighan, Garry, “Who Obstructs the Soldiers' Vote?” Tribune June 30, 1944Google Scholar; M-OA FR 2135, “The Forces Vote” July 19, 1944; “Do the Forces Want the Right to Vote,” Picture Post Aug. 19, 1944.

75. D. Englander and T. Mason, “The British Soldier in World War II,” Warwick Papers in Social History, 1984.

76. Polling day in Britain was July 5, 1945; servicemen had until July 14 to vote, and the results of the election became known on July 29. PD (Commons) Nov. 22, 1945: Labour MP Tom Driberg spoke of the “widespread disfranchisement of servicemen in the General Election”; the official reply indicates the complexity of the registration process and the frequency of error.

77. “Troopship Votes Labour,” Tribune June 8, 1945; “Another Ship Goes Labour,” Tribune July 6, 1945Google Scholar.

78. IWM: 88/36/1 J. Newmark correspondence June 20, 1945.

79. IWM: Fred Lightfoot 06/71. Letters Dec. 15, 1944; July 30, 1945.

80. IWM: 92/29/1 B. Poole, May 29, 1945.

81. A. Allport, Demobbed; Bourke, J., “Going Home: The Personal Adjustment of British and American Servicemen after the War” in Life After Death: Approaches to a Cultural and Social History of Europe during the 1940s and 1950s, eds. Bessel, R. and Schuman, D. (Cambridge, 2003)Google Scholar. On the U.S.: Mettler, S., Soldiers to Citizens: The GI Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (New York, 2005)Google Scholar.

82. Sokoloff, S., “Soldiers or Civilians? The Impact of Army Service in World War II on Birmingham Men,” Oral History 25 (Autumn 1997)Google Scholar.

83. Royle, T., The Best Years of Their Lives: The National Service Experience 1945–63 (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

84. Wyatt, W., Into This Dangerous World (London, 1952)Google Scholar, 99.