The Empire Air Training Scheme: Identity, Empire and Memory

source. 55 Scholars have now gone beyond questioning the subjectivity of memory andrecognise the subjectivity as part of its value. 56 It is within this broad theoreticalstructure that the collective and individual images of EATS need to be placed. Anunderstanding of the complexity of issues voiced around the theories of identity andmemory development, provide a necessary structure to analyse the marginalization ofthe institution of EATS from the Australian dialogue and the way it is negotiated inindividual stories.SourcesThe main focus for sources for this study has been built around imagesrepresenting EATS and, through an exploration of these resources, I hope to map thechanges to public representations of EATS, and how the individual aviator hasnavigated the challenges of the constant change over the decades. Images representingEATS came from numerous sources. First, contributing to the collective images werethe early acclaims of the media and politicians whose initial applause for the Schemeas a symbol of Empire loyalty, were fast to fade, reflecting and contributing to thechanging relationships as past ideals gave way to new visions. Newspapers of theperiod have been referenced as were air force publications 1939-1949, contributing toan overview of the attitudes of the time and their development.Second, impacting on the changing image of EATS is the work of Australianhistorians and their contribution to the collective image. Historians’ presentations ofthe Scheme spanned from the late 1940s to the present day. In terms of historiographyrelating to EATS, operational history remained at the forefront of accounts of55 Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History and Forgetting. Chicago: Chicago University Press, Paperback ed.2006.6.56 Scholars recognising the complexity of the individual memory are Alistair Thomson, Michael Frisch,Paula Hamilton, ‘The Memory in Historical Debates: Some International Debates,’ Oral History, 22Autumn, 1994, 33-44. In this article they offer counter arguments to the criticisms that have been madeof Oral History and Memory. Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Tratsulli and other stories: Formand Meaning in Oral History Albany: State University of New York, 1991, 46.Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000,1 PaulFussell, The Great War and Modern Memory New York: Oxford University Press, 1975 In his writingFussell, gives no analysis to the complexity that emotions may play in the distortion of memory.15