In today’s beautifully described episode the author and journalist Luke Turner takes us back to 1943 to present us with a refreshingly different view of World War 2.
The war, Turner reminds us, was a cultural experience as well as a military contest. One feature of this cultural environment has been largely neglected by generations of scholars. This is the unusual degree of freedom some members of the British armed forces had to explore issues of sexuality and gender.
The stories that feature in this episode are covered in much more depth in Luke’s fascinating new book. Men at War: Loving, Lusting, Fighting, Remembering 1939-1945 is published this week.
For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com.
Show notesScene One: 3-4 April 1943. RAF Lissett, Bridlington, East Yorkshire.
Scene Two: 16 April 1943. Off the coast of North Africa with Wing Commander Ian Gleed of the RAF.
Scene Three. November 1943. A couple of hundred miles north of the Allied line with Lieutenant Dan Billany.
Memento: The cockpit door from Ian Gleed’s hurricane.
People/SocialPresenter: Artemis Irvine
Guest: Luke Turner
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan
Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_
See where 1943 fits on our Timeline
James McAuley: The House of Fragile Things (1942)
Simon Scarrow: Blackout Berlin (1939)
Shrabani Basu: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Crusade (1907)
Margarette Lincoln: The Glorious Revolution (1688)
Mary Hollingsworth: Charles V in Italy (1530)
Philip Stephens: Britain Alone (1962)
Juliet Nicolson: Frostquake (1963)
Prof. Carol Dyhouse: Love, Love, Love (1966)
Prof. John Heilbron: Galileo's Ghost (1643)
Kate Mosse: The City of Tears (1572)
Season Four Trailer
Pen Vogler: A Christmas Feast
Charles Spencer: The White Ship (1120)
Ian Mortimer: Regency Britain (1825)
Joseph Hone: Paper Chase (1711)
Judith Herrin: The Road to Ravenna (500)
Damien Lewis: Behind Enemy Lines (1944)
Giles Tremlett: The Spanish Civil War (1936)
Chris Bryant: The Glamour Boys (1939)
Paul Cartledge: The Battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE)
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