Jim Beach

Intelligent Civilians in Uniform’: The British Expeditionary Force’s Intelligence Corps Officers, 1914–1918

In August 1914 the British Army mobilised an eclectic group of civilians to act as auxiliary intelligence officers with the British Expeditionary Force in France. This article examines how this Intelligence Corps came into being, how its officers were employed, and the evolution of their roles and the personnel system that controlled them. It concludes with some observations on the perception of these officers and their possible place in the wider historiography.

Matthew Henry

Protecting a National Military Body: Territorialising New Zealand’s Border Spaces, November 1915

During 1915 the control of New Zealand’s border spaces was reshaped fundamentally. Widespread concern about the growing failure of volunteer recruitment to meet New Zealand’s reinforcement obligations led both the state and citizens to question the distribution of military duty. This paper examines the way in which military recruiting and the figure of the shirker provided the impetus for the New Zealand state to reshape the mobility of its citizens. Drawing on exchanges between government officials, the article focuses specifically on the decision in late 1915 to introduce an exit permit system in order to prevent the international travel of those wishing to avoid possible military service.

Sanders Marble

Professional Doctors but Amateur Soldiers: The US Army’s Affiliated Hospitals Program 1915–1955

The Preparedness Movement of 1914–17 had a medical counterpart with civilian hospitals ‘affiliating’ with the military. During the First World War this worked well because the doctors’ spirit was willing and the Army was pragmatic, but in the interwar years the Army aimed to make its reserves more professional; the extra requirements for retention and promotion pushed many doctors out of the Army and crippled the program. A revival in the Second World War lacked the volunteer spirit and was handled badly, with the Army making extra promises that made it difficult to utilise doctors, and the Army dropped the program after the war. The Army tried to expand it in 1947, but the hospitals were not necessary in Korea, and after the war changing legislation obviated the need.

Deon Visser

‘Mutiny’ on HMSErebus, September 1939

On the eve of the Second World War the British government agreed to lend the monitor HMS Erebus to the Union of South Africa to bolster the defences of Cape Town. Two detachments of South Africans were recruited and then trained in the United Kingdom to man the Erebus. The Second World War broke out before the Erebus could sail for the Cape, whereupon a number of South African crew refused to serve on the ship and allegedly a spirit of mutiny prevailed amongst them. The aim of this article is to determine whether there was indeed a mutiny or at least the threat of mutiny amongst the South African crew serving on board HMS Erebus in the United Kingdom in September 1939 and if the Erebus scheme indeed ended in shame and dishonour. The article outlines briefly the origins of the loan of the ship to the Union of South Africa by the British government and the recruiting and training of the South African crew. It investigates the conditions and emerging tensions on board the Erebus and it attempts to expose the reasons why and extent to which the South Africans refused to serve on the ship when the Second World War broke out. It concludes with a brief assessment of the relevance of this forgotten episode in South Africa’s Second World War history for the South African National Defence Force today.

Christina Morina

‘An Experiment in Political Education’: Henry W. Ehrmann, German POWs in US Reeducation Programs, and the Democratisation of Germany after the Second World War

‘There is nothing more useful in such times than to fight for the cause through individuals’. This was the teaching philosophy of Henry W. Ehrmann, a political scientist, German émigré and teacher of German POWs selected to participate in US reeducation programs at the end of the Second World War. This article follows their political and social reintegration into postwar German society based on an unpublished collection of letters by Ehrmann and 120 of his students who returned mostly to the three Western occupation zones in Germany. Exploring this unique evidence, the article addresses qualitatively, rather than quantitatively, the effect of re-education on a small percentage of captured Wehrmacht soldiers who developed a lasting commitment to Germany’s democratic reconstruction.

Clayton D. Laurie

Rostow’s Panacea: Strategic Air Power, the OSS Enemy Objectives Unit, and the Origins of ROLLING THUNDER

An unlikely air power theorist, economist, foreign policy adviser, teacher, and writer Walt W. Rostow had considerable experience with strategic bombing dating from his Second World War service with the Office of Strategic Services. In the postwar period, through his years as an Ivy League professor and policy-maker and adviser in the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Rostow continued to study the connection between air power and economic development. During the Vietnam War, Rostow proved one of the staunchest advocates of using air power as one solution to the nation’s diplomatic and military dilemmas.