“We all had our particular mates mine was a West Australian one year younger than me whose birthday fell on the same day,” he said. “I do not believe I have ever loved a woman more deeply than my mate,” said one Australian WWII veteran, who went on to assert the relationship wasn't homosexual. “The atmosphere of emergency and the proximity of violence promotes relaxed inhibitions ending in a special hedonism and lasciviousness - and of course, deeper affection as well,” wrote Paul Fussell, an American WWII veteran and historian. “What people say and what people do are often two different things, and experiences shift across the course of life – not everything can go into neat boxes.” “From reading over masses of personal and official records in Australia and the US, and seeing the paths men take, the lives they lived and the loves they pursued – the fluidity of sexuality, especially in war, becomes really clear,” Smaal says. There are multiple cases of veterans being arrested for homosexuality offences after the war, telling authorities they were pursuing desires discovered in the armed forces.Īfter the war, a gay bar called ‘Diggers’ even opened in Sydney. Gay bars in Kings Cross bulged with servicemen and sailors as warships came to port. “A quarter of homosexual cases in Queensland criminal courts across the war involved airmen, seamen, pilots or others in the military,” he says. “It’s downplayed in the history of the forces given the official emphasis on nation building and masculinity,” Smaal says, “but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that queer men did want to serve.” Yorick Smaal at Griffith University has dedicated his expertise to WWII. The accounts in this article are derived primarily from the documents they uncovered. Historians Gary Wotherspoon, Graham Willett, Ruth Ford, Shirleene Robinson, Noah Riseman and Yorick Smaal have done extensive work to ensure historic LGBT+ service is brought out of the closet. Their stories have been uncovered by dedicated historians who have sifted through thousands of newspaper reports, memoirs, letters, military documents and court records. In the interests of general happiness we re-arranged some room occupants and eventually got all the homos in one block," he said.ĭespite Ruxton's assertions, there are countless tales of LGBT+ soldiers in WWI and II. "We had cases of homosexuals really falling in love. We corresponded right up until his death,” the Australian veteran said, “but we never saw each other again.”Īnother Australian soldier's tale corroborates the account of serious relationships developing in POW camps.
“After the war he became a policeman in Birmingham, got married. The English soldier was put on transport back to England, while the Australian went to France with the Americans. The ambulance serviceman was captured in Crete after missing the last boat of the evacuation-he had gone back to collect one last wounded soldier. “You had to be very careful, act butch until you found the ones like you,” he said.Ī veteran of World War Two, the Australian soldier said he had been held in a POW camp in Greece and then in Germany. He told the magazine that when his friends joined up, he joined up too. While his account can't be verified today, many of the details in his story are corroborated by other sources.
“There were thousands of ex-servicemen who were camp, I think I went through 300 of them myself,” he told the magazine, a copy of which is preserved by the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives. “As an RSL member, ex-POW and serviceman – I apparently have news for you,” the unnamed man told Outrage magazine in 1988. Less well known - but far more revealing - was the angry rejoinder delivered by a fellow veteran. “I don’t know where all these gays and poofters have come from,” he was later famously quoted as saying, “I don’t remember a single one from World War Two.”
“Not even there,” came the response, according to City Rhythm.ĭays earlier Ruxton had told broadcaster Derryn Hinch that if his son was queer he would shoot him, the magazine reported. There was a suggestion that the group instead lay the wreath at a tree near the shrine.