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  • Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939–45: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War by Yorick Smaal
  • Emma Vickers
Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, 1939–45: Queer Identities in Australia in the Second World War. By Yorick Smaal. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Pp. 240. £60.00 (cloth).

In the epilogue of Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific, Yorick Smaal tells the story of a group of veterans who on Anzac Day in 1982 attended the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne to acknowledge those who had served and died during the Second World War. There was a small, imperceptible difference between those veterans and the rest of the crowd that gathered around the memorial that day to pay their respects. These veterans were gay, and they were attempting to lay a wreath that acknowledged the contribution and existence of their gay colleagues. It is perhaps not surprising that the men were prevented from laying the wreath and that their actions were lambasted by Bruce Ruxton, the president of Victoria's Returned and Services League. Having faced a confrontation at the Shrine of Remembrance, the veterans then had to read Ruxton's inflammatory comments in the press. The men were informed that their presence was "denigrating" Anzac Day and that Ruxton could not "remember a single poofter from World War Two" (172). This incident is a powerful indication of public opinion at a time of heightened visibility for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom in the 1980s. Smaal chose not to include a section in his book describing his methodology and process, so we never discover if and how Australian veterans reacted to his research in the twenty-first century. As my work on same-sex desire in the British armed forces demonstrates, such is the sacredness of the Second World War soldier hero in British mythology that the mere suggestion that gay men and women might have served is viewed by some veterans as an act of treachery. It would have been fascinating to know if this sacredness is replicated in Australia.

Sex, Soldiers and the South Pacific is a remarkably textured account of the intersection between military and civilian worlds, and it represents a welcome addition to the scholarly literature. Smaal is an adept storyteller and an exceptionally talented historian. Following in the footsteps of Allan [End Page 340] Bérubé, Julian Jackson, and myself, Smaal has written a book rich in detail about how the Second World War shaped the experiences and identities of men who desired other men in Australia. It is an immersive and fast-paced narrative that frequently resembles the conventions of a dramatic dialogue; Smaal even describes the men he discusses as "characters." The author draws on an astonishing amount of evidence, though its significance is sometimes underexplored in the accompanying commentary. At points, too, some of Smaal's analysis is unnecessarily florid. In relation to an encounter between two of his "characters," he writes that one of the men "could not reach for the Vaseline fast enough" (81). Unfortunately, these occasional remarks are a distraction from an otherwise thoughtful, nuanced, and important interpretation.

Smaal documents three elements of this culture in detail: first, the practices of bitch and butch men and how war shaped those practices; second, the impact of war on queer identities and the institutional responses of the police; and third, the responses of military authorities and medical practitioners. What Smaal demonstrates unequivocally is the variation and instability of categories and the uncertainty of officials and regulatory agencies in their understanding these men. Of particular note is Smaal's analysis of the cross-cultural exchange between American personnel and their Australian counterparts. While this subject receives detailed analysis, however, the book suffers from an absence of narratives concerning the indigenous population and military women. The author's decision to omit these experiences is partly justified by the already expansive nature of the book and the huge amounts of ground that it covers. However, it would have doubtless made Smaal's analysis even more relevant had he considered creating a space for these groups.

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