Doctrine, Practice and Masculinity: Physical Training in the British Army, 1939–1945

Abstract

From the 1860s to the end of the Second World War, the British Army produced several iterations of its physical training doctrine. Such material remains, however, a largely untapped resource for researchers, despite considerable scholarly interest in the subject of military masculinity and corporeality. By drawing extensively on the under-utilized resource provided by military instructional material, the present article will argue that physical activity, primarily through bodily exercise, exerted a fundamental influence on the development of an appropriately military-masculine identity in British Army recruits during the Second World War.