Abstract
Despite popular images that depict World War II paratroopers in idealized terms, the U.S. Army’s creation of these units unleashed a culture of masculinity predicated on aggressive elitism with significant side effects on the battlefield. This article examines American efforts to create airborne units in World War II and the concomitant effects on these units’ treatment of prisoners and sexual violence. The article discusses the difficulty of using fragmentary and inconclusive sources in reconstructing the dark side of warfare. It also offers a reconsideration of popular memory by restoring the harsh reality of war to narratives of American involvement in World War II and the paratroopers.
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Cite this article
Robert F. Williams, “’Our Problem Children’: Masculinity and its Discontents in American Parachute Units in World War II,” The Journal of Military History 87, no. 3 (July 2023): 675–702.