Gay soldiers in world war 2

And in June 1944, a Royal Canadian Navy sailor, Raymond Lindstrom, was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour after a drink-fuelled encounter with a US Army officer and another Canadian sailor in a Londonderry hotel room. According to Beardmore, there could also be a sexual element to this relationship: ‘I know of fellows who were oppos and who were having affairs at the time who went on to become godfathers to each other’s children.’

There also seems to have been plenty of same-sex activity in the women’s branches of the armed forces.

It seems the case would not have come to the authorities’ notice other than that both sailors were originally charged with robbing the American officer, a charge subsequently dropped, and one can only speculate on how many similar sexual encounters must have taken place in hotel rooms, private houses, streets, parks, barrack rooms and other places where queer people were brought together during the war.

Certainly as far as queer men were concerned, historian Matt Houlbrook has described the Second World War as ‘a kind of sexual utopia, containing freedoms and possibilities absent both before and after.’ This is especially true given that in the post-war period there was something of a backlash against queer men, something that has been attributed to factors including calls to return to ‘traditional’ moral standards and concerns over rising divorce rates and the declining national birth rate.

These anxieties have been persistent. They’re lesbians and they always manage to get posted together…they don’t fancy you so get back to bed and go to sleep and don’t bother about them.’ Her memory was that her fellow servicewomen simply ignored this lesbian relationship.

One other common element of the experience of queerness in the armed forces was the role many queer men played in keeping up morale, particularly while on campaign.

As Quentin Crisp later put it: ‘The horrors of peace were many.’

Interviewed in the late 1970s about his wartime experiences, one queer veteran called Roy recalled his service in the Royal Army Medical Corps: ‘It was such a lovely war. We had to because our lives might have depended on it", said Cave.

Cave noted there was never any disciplinary action taken against gay men in his unit:

"One was renowned for [providing sexual favours] in the mangrove swamps.

Indeed, it seems that in the event that a recruit’s queerness was identified by a medical board they were more likely than not to be accepted anyway because of a widespread belief that they could be straightened out by the rigours of military life.

Some of the richest sources of information we have for the experience of queer men and women during the war are the oral history interviews conducted with Second World War veterans later in life.

"I refused, so they sacked me."

Like many other gay soldiers, Private Cave had put his life on the line in the defence of democracy. In Northern Ireland’s capital city, Du-Barry’s near the Albert Clock was a well-known queer venue both during and for many years after the war; indeed, the area around the docks seems to have been something of a cruising ground for men looking for sex with men, with at least one soldier and a male civilian being caught having sex at Queen’s Quay in 1941.

Some sailors necked in public.

This indiscreet behaviour led to rumours. Given the increased persecution of queer men in the 1950s, is not surprising to learn then that in 1938, 719 men were convicted of same-sex activity in England and Wales but this number then went up to 2,109 in 1952. Their exclusion from service and its remembrance for much of the 20th century have left a dark underbelly of misogyny, racism and homophobia.

The female form and ethnicity were easy enough for commanders to identify and preclude.

They make clear that there were plenty of opportunities for service personnel to explore same-sex desire, particularly in the context of an environment which encouraged physical intimacy and close personal relationships with one’s fellow men or women.

Others “dished” gossip and certain personnel “carried on” in the company of their friends, an expression referring to practices of public mockery and flamboyant spectacle.

I think they felt they’d got to be brave in front of the straight lot.’

Of course, the home front also saw its fair share of queer experiences, both for those in and out of uniform. My discovery of an official investigation into a large effete subculture among American sailors in New Caledonia in 1943 is a case in point. Usually considered unlikely soldiers, queer personnel have made a valuable contribution to war since antiquity.

Even the War Office acknowledged in 1943 that soldiers might be tempted by their comrades especially under the influence of alcohol or at morally lax postings overseas.

Queer lives like those of “Mary” and “Kate” are often subsumed within accounts that emphasise furtive, transient and situational encounters between men in war.

Some were hastily transferred to a new unit.