Incarcerated Masculinities: Male POWs and the Second World War

This article serves as an introduction to the themed issue on Incarcerated Masculinities, providing an overview of the literature in this field, including both scholarly texts and personal memoirs. The issue addresses a variety of POW experiences and memories, ranging geographically across incarceration in Europe and the Far East, considers the representation and cultural memory of POWs in the post-war period and engages with the intergenerational transmission of traumatic memories in subsequent decades. This article introduces the experience, impact and legacy of captivity amongst men from Australia, Britain and France during the Second World War which are explored in depth in subsequent articles.