- Title:
- Correspondence, camaraderie, and community : the Second World War for a mother and son
- Creator:
- Gann, Emily
- Date Created:
- 2013
- Degree Awarded:
- Master of Arts
- Subjects:
- World War, 1939-1945 Prisoners and prisons
- Geographical Focus:
- Canada
- Supporting Materials:
- n/a
- Description:
- 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 experience, the intersection of communities of war, and the role of mothers on the home front.
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- Gann, Emily. 2013. "Correspondence, camaraderie, and community : the Second World War for a mother and son", Department of History, Carleton University
- Link to this page:
- https://cuhistory.github.io/grads/items/hist_87.html
Rights
- Rights:
- Copyright the author, all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.