Allan English

Allan English served in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) for 25 years in various operational and instructional positions as an air navigator. He completed his MA in War Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in 1987 and taught in the Military Psychology and Leadership Department there until he retired from the CAF in 1991. He completed his PhD in history at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario in 1993. His book, The Cream of the Crop: Canadian Aircrew 1939-45 examines the RCAF's selection and training procedures and its policies governing aviators who were judged to have a "lack of moral fibre" (LMF). He completed a number of studies on military culture, leadership, and command and control under contract to Defence Research and Development - Canada, one of which was published by McGill-Queen's University Press in 2004 as Understanding Military Culture: A Canadian Perspective. His most recent works in this area are “Corruption in the Canadian Military? Destroying Trust in the Chain of Command” (2017), “Making Sausage”: RCAF Doctrine 2005-2016” (2018), and “Traditional Paradigms of Combat Motivation in the Canadian Military: Teaching Combat Motivation 1985-2010” (2020),  “After Arbour — ‘Reimagining’ RMC,” (2023), “The Forgotten Decade: Women and the RCAF 1952-1962” (2023), and "The 2024 Defence Policy Update and its Predecessors: Why the CAF is in a “Death Spiral”" (2024).

In November 2015 he was given the Queen’s University Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision in the Social Sciences and Humanities.

He was the Principal Investigator for a research project that received $210,000 from the Veterans Affairs Canada, Veteran and Family Well-Being Fund to develop, between 2018-23 in partnership with Servicewomen's Salute Canada, online resources to assist female members of the CAF in their transition to civilian life.