Os manuais de instruções para soldados americanos e britânicos na II guerra mundial : uma análise comparativa (1942-1945)

Abstract

The objective of this work is to analyze, in a comparative perspective, instructions guides produced by United States and Great Britain in the Second World War. We analyzed the Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain (1942), Instructions for British Servicemen in France (1944), and Instructions for American Servicemen in France During World War II (1944). We also sought to make a counterpoint of these analyses with the leaflet 112 Gripes about the French (1945), whose objective was to list Americans gripes about the French behavior and provide possible solutions. The first manual, produced in 1942, had the function of instructing the American soldiers sent to fight in Great Britain. The second, to guide British fighters who were going to France in 1944. The third, also produced in 1944, had as an objective to indicate to the Americans the behavior before the French. From this, it was possible to identify those guides as part of a military formation project conceived by the American and British states in order to instruct the soldiers concerning to the behavior before the local inhabitant. As a theoretical reference, we use Norbert Elias’ theory of the Civilizing Process, in which the author analyzes the history of customs from the formation of the Modern National State. Therefore, we observed that besides the militarily efficient combatant, the states tried to form the cosmopolitan-citizen soldier, who should represent the image of his homeland and project a behavior in order to insert himself into the allied culture.