I voted historian. My interest for the ww2 came from a meeting with Major John Howard at Pegasus Bridge when I was a child. (thanks dad !! ) I particulary interest in the D-Day and also in the study of the Atlantic Wall. My principal aim is to not forget all the men who fought for the freedom of my country.
My reasons are probably quite complex, but here goes. I was born in 1947. My dad had been in the army and my parents met and married in WWII, so it was still very much in the background as an everyday topic of conversation. In addition, although it didn't interest me as such, my dad's lifelong interest was aviation, he knew a lot about the aircraft of WWII and I would hear him talk about it whenever he got the chance. I must have taken it in, because I can't remember when I couldn't tell a Hurricane from a Spitfire. At school, I found history interesting and it came as a great shock to me in the 2nd year of primary school to win the class history prize and realise other people found it less interesting than me. I was hooked. Had I been able to go to university (not so easy as now in 1960s Britain, even without student loans to pay back) it would have been to do history and I would have loved a career teaching history, but it was not to be. Anyway, my interest in history continued unabated and I still have a much wider interest in the subject than WWII. Now, as to why military history, which is not usually seen as "girly" history. I came to realise that wars are often defining moments of history and it is hard to understand what happened without knowing the origins, the events and the outcomes. At some point, I had read enough and taken in enough detail that I was off the steep bit of the learning curve and I got carried along by momentum. Also, for nearly 14 years I worked for the ministry of defence and was trained at the technical end of military ammunition and explosives. In the process, I learned a lot about the weapons systems and the soldiers who used them. This was in the 1960s and 1970s and a lot of WWII stuff was still around - and even the more modern designs were not much different. So, this added to my understanding and when the old soldiers spoke I understood what they were saying. And why WWII? Well I am also interested in WWI, the Napoleonic period and the English and American Civil Wars. But there is so much more of WWII around and it definitely was the "big one" of all time and a defining period in the 20th century. And so it goes on to this day. So I would have to say that history is my reason.
its a world war !! ; just because of racism : 5.7 million USA : 300.000 Nazi Germany : 5million Austria : 380.000 Belgium : 88.000 Bulgaria : 20.000 England (Brit.) : 421.000 Chekoslovakia : 415.000 China : 1.3 million Finland : 90.000 France : 535.000 South Africa : 8.500 Holland : 210.000 Italy : 450.000 Japan : 1.8million Canada : 41.000 Hungary : 430.000 Polonia : 5.8million Romania : 460.000 USSR : 17million New Zealand : 12.000 Yugoslavia : 1.6million people died.. thats the cause of my interest...
In the 1950’s I was fortunate to fly in a P-38. I have been a WWII aircraft nut (and by extension all of WWII) since.
My original interest in WW2 was, and is, research. To begin with this was for educational reasons. However, it is not a straightforward matter putting things into neat compartments. To research the period thoroughly arguably one may need to have some interest and in, and have an understanding of, global and local history, military procedures, societies, families etc. There are, of course, still those around who were around in WW2. For them WW2 is and will always be something personal!
