'Encounters with Empire, 1939-1945'

The project will study the experience and the 'voice' of soldiers and civilians across the British Empire during the Second World War. There is a growing body of scholarship on the imperial and global nature of the war. For example, the 14th Army that defeated the Imperial Japanese Army in the Burma campaign comprised 340,000 Indian troops, 100,000 British and 80,000 African. The British and Indian contribution has been well covered by historians at the expense of the African contribution, and the story of the fighting formations has overshadowed that of 'rear echelon', or labour, units. Similarly the civilian experience is under-studied and therefore a fertile area for research. The project would assess and deepen the literature on the experience of colonial men and women involved in the war effort as combatants, uniformed workers, and civilians, giving a state of the art summary of the field by engaging with literature addressing all non-dominion parts of the Empire. As its original research contribution it would employ new material to document the experience of colonial subjects involved in an imperial war effort. The primary research material would be the oral histories and documents at IWM, ranging from the Private Papers of Isaac Fadoyebo, Royal West African Frontier Force, to the oral history interview with Lieutenant General Stanley Menezes, Indian Army. The project would also investigate visual and material artefacts such as photographs, posters, films, journals and souvenirs. Material relating to the Empire is still being actively collected, and the student would have the opportunity to contribute to this process.

The project offers the opportunity to examine the British Empire as a whole over the war period, and to analyse its legacy. The precise nature of the project would be made clear during the first year but there are a number of questions that could be addressed. Did the experience differ dramatically across the different theatres of the Empire? Were there similarities in the civilian experience for such purposes of Air Raid Precautions? How effective was the high command across the empire? How effective was the Ministry of Information propaganda campaign in the countries of the Empire? Why are the labour companies forgotten? Why has the home front experience across the Empire received such scant attention in comparison with the British home front?