The Empire Air Training Scheme: Identity, Empire and Memory

changing cultural values. Once again in understanding the evolving images of EATS,veterans were forced to grapple with the ever-changing nature of the world.Chapter 8 details a return to the individual recognition of the destruction ofdreams of aerial warfare. Several veterans confronted the uncomfortable reality of thedestruction and darkness encountered in aerial war. Others returned to creating newdreams in their narratives, mythologizing aerial warfare and selecting details thatromanticize the image of the aviator; thus constructing a comfortable identity and theindividual ways of coping with experiences surrounding EATS, is considered centralin the interpretation of images of the individual veterans. The narratives of theveterans negotiate the complexities and contradictions to recreate themselves in themidst of constant change.The images surrounding EATS expose a sense of discontinuity, a rupturebetween past and present represented in the division and tensions between thecollective and individual memories of EATS. The purpose of this thesis is to chart thechange generated as Australian culture and society constantly redefined itself, and toinvestigate how the individual aviator has negotiated such shattered lines of identity. Itis through an exploration of these themes that an explanation for the deletion of eventsfrom history may be explained including the marginalization of EATS.23