This article explores the 1970 case of Broome v. Cassell & Co. in which an elderly wartime naval officer was awarded unprecedented damages for defamation in David Irving's account of the sinking of wartime Allied convoy PQ17 in 1942. The article examines the discourses and images deployed in this landmark British libel action, as a means of analysing how cultural memories of convoy PQ17 and the wartime Royal Navy were shaped and transmitted in post-war Britain. It is argued here that the trial offers a prism through which to explore wider anxieties that the generation who fought the Second World War held during the late 1960s. It maps how contemporary generational tensions, fears of national decline, and concerns about distorted cultural representations of war in Britain were embedded into the trial. This libel case thus became invested with considerable cultural significance among an ageing community of wartime survivors who were intent upon safeguarding wider memories of 'their' war.

中文翻译：

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战后英国文化记忆中的护航 PQ17 和皇家海军的审判

本文探讨了 1970 年的 Broome v. Cassell & Co. 案，在该案中，大卫·欧文 (David Irving) 对 1942 年战时盟军护卫舰 PQ17 沉没的描述中，一名年长的战时海军军官因诽谤获得了史无前例的赔偿。本文考察了所部署的话语和图像在这一具有里程碑意义的英国诽谤行动中，作为分析 PQ17 护航舰和战时皇家海军的文化记忆如何在战后英国形成和传播的一种手段。这里有人认为，审判提供了一个棱镜，通过它可以探索参加第二次世界大战的那一代人在 1960 年代后期所持有的更广泛的焦虑。它描绘了当代代际紧张局势、对国家衰落的恐惧以及对英国战争的扭曲文化表现的担忧如何嵌入审判中。