During the Second World War, around 60,000 British men and women registered as conscientious objectors, the largest number in any belligerent nation. Despite this, these individuals have largely been erased from the public consciousness as they do not fit into the dominant memory of the Second World War in Britain. The conflict is widely understood as Britain's 'finest hour', in which the country united to defeat the evil foe. Furthermore, the dominant memory of the 'Good War' has proved remarkably durable in Britain since 1945 and continues to be invoked frequently - most recently in discourse surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Popular memory theory suggests that when a particular memory of an event or period becomes dominant, it often serves to mute alternative memories. Thus, the memory of the Second World War in Britain has resulted in the marginalisation of memories of conscientious objection.
Taking a cultural memory approach, my paper will explore the marginalised memory of Second World War conscientious objection in Britain. Drawing on autobiographies, I investigate how these individuals retrospectively defend their decision to refuse to fight and how they reflect on their war experiences. I suggest that these texts are significant in highlighting the very different temporal context of the war years, in which the full horror of the Nazi's intentions and actions were widely unknown, and thus serve to challenge the dominant memory of the war in Britain as a righteous crusade against evil.
Furthermore, this paper will trace the changing subject positions of conscientious objectors, evident in the autobiographies. As past events are always filtered through the lens of the present, changing political and cultural contexts since 1945 have affected the way in which conscientious objectors reflect on their wartime experiences. Furthermore, life course theory suggests that patterns of dissent wax and wane with age, so position in the life course at time of publication also influences the way in which individuals reflect on their decision to refuse to fight. I will therefore demonstrate that memories of conscientious objection are significantly shaped by the context of remembering.
