Aldona Sendzikas

- Associate Professor

image of Aldona Sendzikas 
PhD, University of Hawai'i, 2002
Telephone: 519-661-2111 ext. 84377
Email: asendzi2@uwo.ca 

Office hours:

Fall term - Tuesdays 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm. Winter term -  Thursdays 12:30 pm - 1:20 pm.

Research Interests

Professor Sendzikas specializes in 20th century U.S. cultural and social, as well as military history, and American Studies. Her research interests include the U.S. Submarine Service, particularly during WWII; prisoner-of-war issues; Canada-U.S. relations; and Cold War culture and society.

Major Research Projects

My current research projects include:

Lt. Col. Reginald Symonds Timmis and his animal advocacy
Timmis served as commander of the Royal Canadian Dragoons at Stanley Barracks in the 1930s, and was a veteran of both World Wars. He was a prominent Toronto citizen, a prize-winning equestrian, and the author of books on horsemanship. He stands out as an early animal rights activist, serving with the Toronto Humane Society and advocating against the practice of the docking of horses’ tails.

Animals of the Cold War
In the summer of 1946, the U.S. military conducted atmospheric nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands and detonated two nuclear bombs. The residents of Bikini were forced to relocate, and more than 90 naval vessels were gathered to serve as testing targets. What is less known about this event is that several thousand animals were placed aboard those vessels, as a means of evaluating the effects of nuclear detonations on living beings.

Phil Ochs in Canada
Between 1965 and 1973, seminal American folk-protest singer Phil Ochs performed at least 17 concerts in Canada, including a 1968 appearance at Western University’s Alumni Hall. Two of Phil’s albums memorialize his Canadian performances: There and Now: Live in Vancouver 1968 and Phil Ochs Live in Montreal 10/22/66. Biographer Michael Schumacher suggests that Phil found satisfaction as well as inspiration in Canada. I am hoping to document Ochs’ Canadian experiences, and find evidence of his reactions to, and thoughts about, Canadian society and the Canadian student protest movements of the 1960s.

Select Publications

Books:

Barracks Cover

(2011) Stanley Barracks: Toronto's Military Legacy (Dundurn Press) 212pp.

Stanley Barracks, located in the present day Canadian National Exhibition grounds in Toronto, was constructed by the British Army in 1841 in Toronto to replace Fort York and was originally known as “the New Fort.” After the withdrawal of British forces from Canada in 1871, Stanley Barracks served various purposes, including training depot for the Northwest Mounted Police and internment centre for “enemy-aliens” during the First World War. This, the first comprehensive history of Stanley Barracks, includes material about the role of the C.N.E. grounds as “Exhibition Camp” during the two World Wars. Stanley Barracks was awarded Heritage Toronto's Award of Merit by the City of Toronto.

 

Lucky 73 Cover

(2010) Lucky 73: USS Pampanito’s Unlikely Rescue of Allied POWs in WWII (University Press of Florida) 258pp.

Lucky 73 recounts the sinking of Japanese transport ships by U.S. submarines in the South China Sea in 1944, and the subsequent rescue--also by submarines--of British and Australian POWs who had been aboard those ships. The book focuses on the submarine USS Pampanito (SS-383), and is based on first-hand written accounts, oral history interviews with both the submarine crew and the POWs they rescued, and official naval records. Lucky 73 was nominated for the Society for History in the Federal Government's Henry Adams Prize and the North American Society for Oceanic History's John Lyman Book Prize.

Articles:

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  • "Since You Went Away" (about relationships and correspondence during wartime), in Behind the Lines: Canada's Homefront during the First and Second World Wars (London: Western/McIntosh Gallery, 2018).
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  • "Very Much a Prisoner": Japanese- Canadians during the Second World War", in Behind the Lines: Canada's Homefront during the First and Second World Wars (London: Western/ McIntosh Gallery, 2017).
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  •  “Unredeemed Americans:  Canada as Seen by the American Colonies before the Revolutionary War.”  The Journal of Erie Studies, Spring 2016.
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  • “Aboard Japan’s WWII Hellships:  First Person Accounts.”  Sea Letter, No. 72, Fall 2015.
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  • “On Womanhood in Wartime: Canadian Women and the Second World War.”  Published in exhibit catalogue (“Over Here:  Women, Work and WWII”).  McIntosh Gallery and Museum London, 2004.

 

Professional Service

Teaching and Museum Experience

Prior to coming to Western, I taught American Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and U.S. History at Chaminade University of Honolulu, both on campus and on military bases throughout the island of O‘ahu.

I have also worked at a number of museums, including as Assistant Curator at Historic Fort York in Toronto; Museum Curator at USS Bowfin Submarine Museum at Pearl Harbor; and Curator/Education Manager at USS Pampanito in San Francisco. I have also done curatorial consulting work for the USS Missouri Memorial at Pearl Harbor and the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda, California.