GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love

by Barrett, Duncan; Calvi, Nuala

  ‘What?’ Sylvia gasped. Could it be that yet again she had unwittingly given a man the impression that she was interested in marrying him? She had seen her letter-writing as a patriotic activity – was she now going to receive a stream of proposals as all the men returned home?

  ‘I want to marry you,’ Tom insisted.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom, but I’m leaving for America tomorrow to marry someone else!’ Sylvia said.

  Tom looked at her mournfully with his big brown eyes. He reminded Sylvia of a spaniel. ‘Oh, so I’m too late!’ he said bitterly.

  Mrs Bradley bustled into the hall. ‘Well, since you’ve come all the way from Nottingham, you must stay,’ she said. For the rest of the day Sylvia went about preparing for her journey, trying to ignore the reproachful looks Tom shot her.

  The next morning, Sylvia came downstairs in her new tweed suit, with her suitcase and a fur coat, and she and her parents got ready to go to the airport. ‘Can I come along?’ Tom asked her mother. ‘I’d like to see Sylvia off.’ Mrs Bradley couldn’t bring herself to say no to those big brown eyes, so Tom was allowed to accompany them.

  Sylvia was to fly from Croydon Airfield, which until recently had been used by RAF Transport Command. During the war the need to fly supplies and passengers from America to the UK had made crossing the Atlantic a routine operation, and now commercial companies were beginning to move into trans-Atlantic flights.

  They were told to wait in a Quonset hut, from which Sylvia got her first glimpse of the plane she would be taking. It was a DC-4, a four-engined propeller-driven plane, of the same kind that had been used during the war. She felt a rush of excitement and nervousness as she saw the words ‘Pan American World Airways’ along the side. Here she was, Sylvia Bradley from Woolwich, about to take an aeroplane and go to live in America! Best of all, waiting for her there was the man of her dreams – her beloved Bob.

  The Bradleys had to go along a wooden walkway across a muddy field to the runway, where Sylvia was met by a steward to take her onto the plane. Her father handed Sylvia her little suitcase. She had only been able to take 40lbs, so all that was packed in it was a change of woolly underwear, her wedding dress and veil, a robe and a nightie she had made herself and the cake server her friends at work had given her.

  Tom said goodbye and wished her luck, still looking as disappointed as he had the day before. Sylvia hugged her father and saw that his eyes were filling with tears. She suddenly felt a flash of guilt that amid all her excitement and happiness she was causing pain to him and her mother. ‘We’re going to miss you, love, but I hope you’re happy,’ he said.

  Sylvia’s mother said her goodbyes next. Mrs Bradley knew she had finally lost the power to watch over her little girl. ‘Take care of yourself, and be careful, won’t you?’ she pleaded. ‘If you have any problems, you know you can write to me.’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ Sylvia said, hugging her tightly.

  Then, as she turned to go, her mother added, ‘You’ve made your bed, and now you’ll have to lie in it.’

  16

  Gwendolyn

  At 6 a.m. on 4 February 1946, the first official war-bride ship, the SS Argentina, docked at Pier 54 in New York. Despite the early hour and bitingly cold weather, the war brides were met by a crowd of 200 reporters for print, radio and newsreels, along with the Mayor of New York, William O’Dwyer. In honour of their arrival, the Statue of Liberty was floodlit for the first time since the start of the war. Soon, more than a dozen war-bride boats were crossing the ocean in an almost constant relay.

  Press attention was intense on both sides of the Atlantic. Amid the stories of romantic reunions, some darker tales soon began to emerge, especially in the British tabloids. The Daily Mail wrote of the ‘abandoned’ brides who had arrived in New York to find their husbands wanted nothing to do with them, claiming – with little evidence – that hundreds were living in squalor, surviving on Red Cross handouts. There was more than a touch of smugness about such stories, since GI brides had already been stereotyped in the sensationalist press as gold-diggers, femme fatales and even prostitutes. Magazine coverage of GI marriages had predicted 80 per cent would fail, and newspapers had printed letters celebrating the departure of the ‘British trash’ who had dallied with the Yanks.

  Reading the papers in Southampton, Lyn shrugged off the more salacious reports. Despite continued ribbing from her colleagues, she knew Ben was a good man who would never abandon her. In fact, he had recently sent her a photograph of the wedding and engagement rings his mother had tried to send her, which had gone back and forth across the Atlantic. She showed it off at work to prove her GI was as good as his word, but the girls still teased her, joking she would arrive in California to find Ben wearing a zoot suit like a gangster.

  The war-bride ships all departed from Southampton, and it was Ben’s old company, the 14th Port, who were in charge of the operation. There were now around 70,000 brides waiting for transportation from Britain to America, plus many more from other countries, and Lyn had resigned herself to a long wait. But one day she got a call from Shady Lane, Ben’s former CO. ‘Pack your bags, sugar,’ he told her. ‘You’ve been bumped up the list!’

  Lyn rushed to tell her GI-bride friend Jean the good news. ‘That’s great,’ Jean said, but she struggled to hide her envy. They both knew the war-bride transport was predicted to go on for many months, perhaps even years.

  Before long, Lyn received a letter telling her to prepare to travel at short notice. There was also a postcard to fill in accepting the offer of transportation, a questionnaire and a railway warrant covering passage to a transit camp near the village of Tidworth, thirty miles north of Southampton. It seemed ridiculous to travel away from the city her boat would leave from, but at least the new camp sounded exciting – recent press coverage had dubbed it a ‘country club for GI brides’.

  Lyn was instructed to bring her marriage, birth and baptismal certificates, as well as her ration book and clothing coupons, and was warned not to take more than 200lbs of luggage. She tried to keep the excitement from overwhelming her as she packed her bags. She felt sorry to be leaving her parents behind – perhaps never to see them again – but Lyn’s desire to be reunited with Ben eclipsed all else.

  When the day came for her to depart, Lyn’s parents took her to the train station. Mrs Rowe welled up at the thought of her youngest daughter setting off halfway across the world on her own, while Mr Rowe hugged Lyn tighter than he ever had before. It was a bittersweet moment for Lyn, as she climbed into the carriage and waved goodbye to them from the window.

  When she arrived at Tidworth camp along with a motley crew of other war brides, Lyn quickly realised it was very far from a ‘country club’. The brides slept in huge red-brick dormitory huts, sixteen to a room, in beds sorted alphabetically by surname, some of which were infested with fleas. The huts were freezing cold at night, inadequately heated by little coal fires. At meal times, the brides were ushered into a cavernous mess hall, where German POWs resentfully slopped sauerkraut onto their metal food trays. One US Army representative told a group of brides, ‘You may not like the conditions here, but remember, no one asked you to come.’

  Lyn’s contingent of brides were excited to discover they were to travel on the famous liner the Queen Mary. But first they were to undergo several days of ‘processing’, which involved much queuing, followed by injections, blood tests, X-rays and impertinent questions such as, ‘Have you ever been a prostitute?’ and ‘Have you ever taken drugs?’ Then, they were taken for fingerprinting. Lyn couldn’t help feeling they were being treated like criminals.

  But the worst ordeal was ‘The Physical’. Lyn was surprised to be ushered into the garrison theatre, where she was told to strip, put on a robe and join the queue of brides waiting to walk up onto the stage. To her horror, a doctor was seated there with a torch, and as each woman walked up to him she opened her robe and he shone the light between her legs to inspect her.

  When Lyn got up on
the stage, her legs were shaking.

  ‘Open your robe,’ the doctor commanded.

  ‘I – I can’t,’ she stammered.

  ‘Do you want to go to America?’ he demanded.

  She nodded weakly.

  ‘Then open your robe.’

  Lyn peeled back the fabric and exposed her naked body to the doctor. He shone his flashlight over her, then shouted, ‘You’re done. Next!’

  She gathered up her clothes and dashed to her dormitory, fighting back tears.

  Lyn’s cohort of brides consoled themselves with the thought that their ordeal was only temporary. But the night before they were due to sail, an American officer announced, ‘You’ve been bumped to the President Tyler. You’re going to have to stay a couple more days.’

  For Lyn, already exhausted and humiliated, it was the last straw. She packed her bag and walked out of the camp.

  ‘If you’re not back in two days you’ll miss the boat,’ a guard shouted after her, but she didn’t care.

  When she turned up on her parents’ doorstep in Southampton, her mother cried, ‘Oh my God – you’ve changed your mind, haven’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum,’ Lyn replied. ‘I just couldn’t take any more of that camp.’

  Mrs Rowe brought her inside and put the kettle on. Part of her was glad to see her daughter again, but she was anxious about the possible repercussions. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Gwen,’ she said, ‘but if you want to be with Ben, you’re going to have to go back.’

  Lyn nodded slowly. Suddenly she felt terrible for what she had done – putting her mother through false hope, and now yet another difficult parting to come. ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she whispered, now feeling more wretched than ever.

  The next morning, she said a second, more tearful goodbye to her parents. ‘Promise me you won’t come down to the dock tomorrow,’ she said. She didn’t think she could cope with seeing them wave her off.

  ‘All right, love, if that’s what you want,’ her father said.

  Lyn returned to Tidworth, and the brides were finally transported to Southampton. There, waiting for them, was the SS President Tyler, a single-funnelled ship half the length of the Queen Mary. ‘We have to cross the Atlantic in that?’ one of the brides exclaimed in disbelief.

  Not only was the Tyler a smaller vessel, it was considerably slower as well. Their journey time across the Atlantic had been doubled from five days to ten.

  Oh well, Lyn told herself, at least she had seen the last of Tidworth, and when they arrived in New York Ben would be there to meet her. He had written to say he was planning to fly from California so they could see the Big Apple together, and then he would take her back with him on the return flight.

  Lyn clambered up the gangplank and stood up on deck, looking back at the city she was leaving behind. A crowd of people had gathered to wave off the boat, and she suddenly spotted a couple of faces she recognised. It was her parents, who had broken their promise not to come.

  ‘Happy birthday, Gwen!’ her mother shouted, waving frantically. In all the upset, Lyn had completely forgotten the date. It was 19 March, her twentieth birthday.

  She tried her best to smile as she waved back at her parents. She didn’t want their last image of her to be an unhappy one.

  On the boat, the brides were under the care of the Red Cross, which had assigned a handful of its officers to every vessel. As well as running onboard nurseries, the girls provided a regime of entertainment for the passengers, including knitting classes, bingo nights, card tournaments, quizzes, hat-making contests, sing-alongs, classical concerts, ballroom dancing and even writing the ships’ magazines, with names such as Wives Whispers and The Porthole Peeper. Every war-bride boat also had a well-stocked library of books and magazines, and screened a different movie every night.

  The Red Cross did its bit to prepare the brides for life in the US with a series of lectures on topics such as ‘Behaviour and Conduct in America’ and how to pledge allegiance to the flag. The organisation also saw its role as policing the women’s morals. The war brides were sharing the Tyler with returning servicemen, and had been told that fraternisation with the soldiers was forbidden. The Red Cross took their late-night ‘chastity patrol’ very seriously, since rumours persisted of girls sneaking off for affairs with male passengers and crew.

  For some women, living conditions onboard the transport ships came as a shock. Even the luxury liners were still in their troop-ship arrangements, with many bunk beds or hammocks crammed into each cabin. Lyn didn’t so much mind that – it was the washing facilities she struggled with. The girls strip-washed in front of one another, and her awkwardness was taken for snobbery by some of the brides, who started calling out ‘La-di-dah’ whenever she walked into the room.

  At least Lyn found herself unaffected by the queasiness that overwhelmed a large number of the brides, and she soon began looking for things to occupy her time. She was encouraged to enter a beauty pageant, organised and judged by the Red Cross. There were no swimsuits involved, but the girls paraded up and down in front of the serious-looking panel of three Red Cross workers, flashing them their best smiles.

  Then they stood waiting as the panel made up their minds. The woman next to Lyn whispered, ‘You’re going to win this,’ and, looking down the row, Lyn thought she was probably right.

  She was delighted to see one of the judges heading in her direction with a rosette. The woman pinned it to Lyn’s chest, and she smiled proudly. But when she looked down at it, she realised it was blue for second place, not the winner’s red she had expected. She looked along the line of women to see who had pipped her to first place, and was annoyed to see a buxom blonde jumping with joy, her red rosette bobbing up and down.

  When the ship had been out at sea for about a week, the relatively calm waters they had so far enjoyed began to get choppier. The boat’s tipsy movements unsettled the women, and when one bride spotted a dark, inky substance in the water, the others were quick to react.

  ‘It’s oil,’ said one girl. ‘We’ve sprung a leak!’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said another. ‘Maybe we’ve hit an iceberg, like the Titanic.’

  ‘But we’re too far out now – they’ll never be able to rescue us!’ the first cried.

  By now, other brides had crowded round and their speculations were being passed around as facts. Several girls started to cry and wail.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Lyn.

  ‘Haven’t you heard? The ship’s sinking!’ a girl screamed at her, clearly hysterical.

  Two Red Cross girls heard the commotion and realised they needed to get the situation under control.

  ‘Everyone down to the dining room,’ one of them called.

  The women protested – they weren’t going to be shut away to await their deaths.

  ‘We will investigate and bring you information as soon as possible. Now please – go to the dining room at once.’

  Reluctantly, the brides allowed themselves to be shepherded into the room, where the Red Cross calmed their nerves with tea and biscuits.

  A crew member soon arrived to reassure them. ‘We haven’t hit anything, and there isn’t a serious leak. We lost a bit of oil when the water got rough, but we’re not sinking.’

  The leak might have been harmless, but the ship was going to have to reduce speed, he told them. Their arrival in America would be delayed even further.

  Lyn couldn’t believe it. She had just about resigned herself to a ten-day voyage instead of the five the Queen Mary would have taken, but now she would be at sea for almost a fortnight.

  That evening everyone was quieter than usual. Some were embarrassed at having been so easily whipped up into mass hysteria, while others found it difficult to let go of the fear that had gripped them. All felt it had been a reminder of how vulnerable they were out on the open sea.

  On the final night of the voyage, some of the brides staged a variety show, which they called the Tyler Follies. This was a Red Cross in
novation that had rapidly spread across the war-bride fleet, assuming different names on different vessels, such as the Gibbon Gaieties or the Argentina Antics. The girls sang, danced and performed short skits – one bride even dressed up as the Statue of Liberty – and the show ended with the final communal sing-song of the voyage before the brides went their separate ways in the morning. Many exchanged addresses and promised to write, fearful at losing their sense of community and starting afresh as individuals in a huge foreign country. But after nearly two weeks at sea, all Lyn wanted was to set foot on dry land and be with Ben again.

  Early on the morning of 1 April, the women gathered up on deck to see the iconic landmark that every GI bride had been waiting for: the Statue of Liberty. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,’ ran the poem around her plinth. But the huddled masses onboard the Tyler were not fleeing poverty or tyranny – they were there for love.

  Lyn gazed at the statue in wonder. She felt she had never seen anything so magnificent.

  As non-quota immigrants, the brides had no need to stop at Ellis Island, so the Tyler made her way up the Hudson alongside Manhattan before pulling in to dock at one of the piers, where Lyn could hear a band playing a predictable medley of tunes: ‘Sentimental Journey’, ‘America the Beautiful’ and ‘Here Comes the Bride’.

  Now the slow business of processing the brides could begin. On arrival, responsibility for the young women was handed over to the New York chapter of the Red Cross, which had set up an office nearby. Those brides whose husbands were coming to collect them would be allowed off, while others who required transport to their final destinations on official war-bride trains would stay onboard until the following day.

  Lyn was relieved that Ben was to meet her in New York. All that remained was for her name to be called over a loudspeaker, so that he could come and sign for her. She waited as a Red Cross girl called out the brides’ names, working her way through the alphabet. One by one their husbands stepped forward to claim them, and the women traipsed down the gangplank.