‘Commando Consciousness’ and Criminality in Post-Second World War Fiction

Commandos had a high profile role in the British war effort during the Second World War, and in the years following a number of popular literary representations engaged with the potentially dangerous masculinity of these special forces through a consideration of what happens when Commandos return to civilian society. In many examples, former Commandos become involved in criminal activity and debates about the consequences of training men to kill thus intersect with wider concerns about the causes and prevalence of crime in postwar Britain. It is when Commandos or former Commandos come into contact with the forces of law and order that their anomalous and threatening characteristics are brought into focus and, superficially at least, controlled.