Occupied St John’s: A Social History of a City at War, 1939–1945 (review)

This collection of seven substantive and original papers makes important contributions to the growing number of works on war and society and local communities during the world wars. High and his nine collaborators, supported by a small army of student researchers funded by the Johnson Family Foundation, over the course of three years interviewed some fifty people who lived in St John’s during the Second World War, then a community of some forty thousand that was inundated by as many as twenty thousand servicemen from Canada and the United States.

To date, studies on Newfoundland in the Second World War have focused on military dimensions, namely its role as a staging point for naval convoys and air ferry service. While some popular works have covered, in a generally positive and romanticized way, the experiences of American servicemen assigned to the island, this collection shows that there are many other, and often quite complex, stories to tell. The book is enhanced by superb production quality, including more than 150 photographs and originally produced maps. A very handsome volume, it is a bargain at under fifty dollars.

The essays are grouped thematically, dealing with changes to the physical landscape, society, and culture, and the global context of what St John’s experienced. The editor has done an excellent job in selecting topics that complement each other; indeed, most authors use information from other contributors to reinforce their arguments. Christopher Sharpe and A.J. Shawyer provide an overview of the economic and social impact of the military, describing new job opportunities for local civilians and the modernization of long-neglected and rudimentary infrastructure, but also how new construction caused social dislocations among people who had often lived on expropriated property for generations. Paul Collins expands upon such themes through his focus on the militarization of St John’s. He also addresses social interactions, noting, for example, many new outlets for entertainment but also new concerns over rising crime and declining public morality. In her piece, based largely upon wartime recollections, Barbara Lorenzkowski reconstructs the war years through the eyes of children. She describes militarized games, the excitement generated by bustling docks, patriotic activities and anxieties created by war news, blackouts, and the arrival of survivors from German U-boat attacks, as well as how childhood experiences were shaped by gender. Steven High details civilian-military relations, such as the fact that many local women were enamoured by the Americans, but also that the ‘friendly invasion’ produced fewer marriages than often presumed and a concerted effort to regulate women as a means of combating rising venereal disease rates. Jeff Webb focuses on the spread of American popular culture that intensified with the establishment of military radio stations, uso clubs, and visits by Hollywood stars, but also demonstrates a reciprocal process, as many Americans came to learn about and appreciate local customs and even gained some knowledge of Newfoundland’s history. Contributions by Newfoundland women to the home front were many, and Gillian Poulter and Douglas Baldwin cover those of Captain Mona Wilson, manager of the provincial Red Cross, whose work underlines the importance of wartime voluntarism and the fact that some women, even when acting within restrictive gender norms, still assumed tremendously important leadership roles. The collection closes with Ken Coates and William Morrison showing that experiences in St John’s had strong similarities to those in communities elsewhere, as it was one of many ‘friendly’ Second World War ‘invasions’ by the United States in places that included Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada’s west and far north.

This collection will appeal to both academic specialists and the broader public. The essays are rigorously researched and meticulously documented but also written in an accessible and lively style. There are a couple of small quibbles one could make. While some overlap between the papers is to be expected, it is more questionable...