Todd Fuller’s 2024 work “1940: Based on a True Story”, is a speculative one, loosely based on a true “love” story between two men during WWII. It is set at the time of the Battle of Britain which occurred from July to October 1940, the first military campaign to be fought entirely in the air. The Royal Air Force’s victory over the German Air Force indefinitely halted the invasion of the United Kingdom.
The further background to the story is of an older South African man from England visiting Australia in the 1930’s and meeting a younger man at an Eastern Suburbs Surf Lifesaving Club. Though the young man had a family, it was agreed for him to return to England as a ward of the older man. He trained as a pilot, joined 152 Squadron and became the 10th Australian to be killed in the Battle of Britain.
While there is no direct evidence that the relationship was homosexual, it is quite clear from personal letters that the relationship between the two was a deep and special one. After the younger man’s death, the older man built a substantial memorial to the younger one on the site where his plane crashed. He also appears to have held onto the younger man’s ashes and was potentially buried with them. In diary entries from the younger pilot, there are discussions about both taking on the older gentleman’s name, and even possession of his manor. Notably, there are also mentions of female love interests, but Fuller describes these as never having the same warmth as the words used to describe the older man.
From these bare bones, Fuller has fashioned a speculative and somewhat idealized fictional love story between two men at a time when homosexuality was a criminal offence. As the title of the work suggests, it is based on a true story, but Fuller leans hard into his speculation and creates an elaborate fantasy to fill in the blanks of history. Without apology, he blurs truth and fantasy
Same-sex relationships and War have been a somewhat taboo subject in Australia. We know such relationships existed, in fact in the adjacent Squadron 87 to our younger pilot, the gay English pilot Widge Gleed invented a fictional fiancée, Pam, in his wartime published memoir – much to his family’s amusement. The following is an attempt to explain the causes that may have kept the true nature of such relationships “in the closet”.
It is interesting to note that the relationships between men and women of the same gender during the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially those from “privileged classes” which have been more documented, were more intimate, though not necessarily sexual.
With the Labouchere Amendment, Section 11 of the UK Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 made for the first time “gross indecency” between men a crime. It was used to prosecute men where sodomy could not be proved. It became known as the Blackmailer’s Charter and the law was dutifully exported to most colonies in the British Empire.
It was under Section 11 that Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing were prosecuted and found guilty. Turing was pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013, and in 2017 Wilde among 50,000 other men was pardoned under the Turing Law. It is salient to note that if Wilde had restricted his sexual dalliances to men of his own social class instead of rent boys, he would probably not have been brought to trial.
While the trial of Wilde is well known, the tragedy of Alan Turing, who died in 1954, came to light only with his pardon. Turing was a mathematical genius who worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, he and his team in Hut 8 developed a machine that could decipher messages generated by the German Enigma machines. As a result of Turing’s work, WWII was probably shortened by years and millions of lives were saved.
In 1952 Turing was prosecuted under Section 11 for homosexual acts, he accepted chemical castration instead of prison. In 1954, he died aged 41, from cyanide poisoning after eating an apple. The inquest determined it was suicide, but his death was also consistent with accidental poisoning. It was only in 2009 that the government apologized for his treatment.
“We’re sorry — you deserved so much better,” said Gordon Brown, the then prime minister. “Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was, under homophobic laws were treated terribly.”
“Homosexual Acts” were partially decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967, but it was not until 1982 that decriminalisation of same-sex activity between men throughout the UK was achieved.
Decriminalisation of homosexual acts in Australia occurred over 22 years. In 1975 South Australia was the first to enact legislation under Premier Don Dunstan, the ACT followed in 1976, Victoria in 1980, the Northern Territory in 1983, NSW in 1984, Western Australia in 1989, and Queensland in 1990. It was only in 1997 after the threat of a state law being struck down by the High Court, that Tasmania relented and passed gay law reform by one vote.
The impetus for decriminalisation in South Australia occurred because of community outrage following the murder in 1972 of law lecturer Dr George Duncan. Duncan and two other men were thrown into the Torrens River at a gay beat by three Vice Squad officers. Duncan who could not swim drowned. No-one was ever held accountable for his murder.
Decriminalisation does not necessarily mean that entrenched heteronormative prejudices change. Between 1989 and 1999, 46 known gay-hate murders took place in New South Wales. The perpetrators of these murders were packs of “heterosexual” men, some probably policemen, raised in heteronormative households, who had been socialised to regard “poofters” and “fags” as fair game.
It is hard not to forget that historically the NSW police have over the years raided gay and lesbian parties in private house and venues and frequently used entrapment techniques to secure convictions. In fact, after the first Mardi Gras Parade in 1978 in which the NSW Police Force played a disgraceful role, the Sydney Morning Herald subsequently published the names and addresses of those arrested with the result that some participants lost their jobs, were kicked out of home, had their rental tenancies terminated, and were outed to their families. Some committed suicide. But it was not until 2016, that the Herald formally apologised for its reprehensible behaviour. The NSW Government and the NSW Police Force also apologised in 2016 to the 78ers.
With this context in mind, it is no wonder Fuller and others working with Queer history sometimes need to ‘read between the lines’ and take a leap of speculation.
In a heteronormative society, it is difficult for those who identify exclusively as heterosexual to understand, let alone identify with, the concept of the “other” in relation to gender. What one has not experienced is either ignored or, at worst, greeted with hostility. Those who identify as “other”, or LGBTIQ+, have invariably been socialised in heteronormative households and understand the roles that boys and girls must learn to perform to ingratiate themselves into a heteronormative world. The Village People’s songs YMCA and Macho Man play with this idea. In fact, without any sense of irony, YMCA was appropriated by Donald Trump as a MAGA anthem.
In 2022 Justice John Sackar led a Special Commission of Inquiry to investigate unsolved hate crime deaths of LGBTQ people in NSW between 1970 and 2010. The Inquiry took 18 months and issued its final report in December 2023. The damming report found that police were “indifferent, negligent, dismissive or hostile” and made 19 recommendations but stopped short of formally recommending the Police should apologise. Justice Sackar said, “I have not recommended an apology because I consider that an apology perceived as coming about only because I have recommended it is likely to be of limited value.”
Subsequently the NSW Government and the NSW Police Force issued apologies. Police Commissioner Webb said in February 2024, “To the victims and families that the NSW Police failed by not adequately and fairly investigating those deaths between 1970 and 2010, I am sorry…. I realise that this has meant missed opportunities to identify possible offenders as new leads emerged or as new forensic advances became available…. And I acknowledge the increased suffering experienced by victims and their families where the crimes were motivated by bias against members of the LGBTIQ community.”
Justin Koonin, President of ACON, welcomed Commissioner Webb’s apology, and added: “We see this apology as a first step towards healing the past, which must now be followed by a clear roadmap to address historical wrongs and improve policing practice in the future… These large scale, systemic failures within the NSW police system have prevented justice for decades. These systemic failures are not relics of a bygone era but have continued up until the present day.”
The relationship between the LGBTIQ+ community and the powers that be, have and, in some instances, continue to be fraught with discrimination, pitting perceived injustices against real injustices. These perceived injustices invariably arise out of belief systems e.g., under Section 38 of the Commonwealth Sex Discrimiation Act religious educational institutions, including Catholic schools can discriminate against staff and students based on their gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy, and marital status.
In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr pessimistically wrote : “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose“ (“the more things change, the more they stay the same”).
Todd Fuller’s “1940: Based on a True Story” is an important work for the LGBTIQ+ community in that it holds a mirror up to the inequities that have and continue to have repercussions for our community. The truth is that when anyone is discriminated against, everyone is discriminated against.
Richard Perram OAM
April 2025