Beyond the Brotherhood: Reassessing US Army Combat Relationships in the Second World War

Abstract

The conventional wisdom that portrays US combat soldiers in World War II as a 'band of brothers' owes much to Hollywood and popular history, and distorts serious understanding of the relationships within combat units of the US Army. This article examines this idea in the context of theories of unit cohesion and combat motivation and suggests a more complex understanding of these issues.     

‘Playing the Game to the Army’: The Royal Army Medical Corps,Shell Shock and the Great War

Abstract

The utilization and role of female combatants in modern armies is a subject generally fraught with half-truths and misinformation. The mobilization of women in supporting roles during the Second World War is generally well understood, but the German use of women as combatants in the last years of the war raises important issues of women's place in the Nazi state and ideology as well as considerations of gender and military service.