부산대학교 도서관

This article will assess the role of Canada’s Merchant Navy during the Second World War and appraise shifting government attitudes towards the civilian mariners in veterans’ legislation in the postwar period. By examining the factors that contributed to the civilian mariners’ initial exclusion as veterans, this study sheds light on the complex process whereby the state evaluates and then reassesses what is owed to those who serve. The redress campaign to achieve veteranhood from the early 1980s provides new insight into how these veterans marshalled resources and mobilized their own personal wartime histories as part of a broader movement in that decade of re-engaging with the Second World War. As part of their efforts, the mariners first had to engage with other veterans and win them over as allies. In their struggle with the state, the mariners asserted that the risk they faced, the casualties they suffered, and the wartime government’s management of the fleet, meant that Ottawa had greater responsibilities in regard to their postwar care and that they had earned veteran status. This is the first sustained study of the redress campaign that ran for almost twenty years, from the early 1980s to 2000. It demonstrates that the concept of “veteranhood” is fluid, and that once neglected wartime narratives can be reincorporated into the nation’s military legacy.