GI Brides: The wartime girls who crossed the Atlantic for love

Before she had a chance to answer, the door burst open and in walked Mr and Mrs Burton, slightly tipsy. As soon as she saw the look on her daughter’s face, Rae’s mother knew something was wrong.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

‘I joined the Army, Mum,’ Rae replied.

Her mother was quiet for a moment. ‘You know I could stop you,’ she said. ‘You’re still only seventeen.’

‘Yes,’ said Rae, ‘but they’ll get me anyway in the end.’

‘All right then,’ her mother sighed. She knew there was no point in arguing with Rae once her heart was set on something.

On the long train journey to Glencorse Barracks, a few miles south of Edinburgh, Rae’s enthusiasm and excitement only grew with every mile. Her contingent of raw recruits arrived at 11 p.m. and was met by a brusque Scottish sergeant with flaming red hair, who led them on a march to the camp. This was no mean feat, given that many of the women were wearing heels, and they couldn’t help laughing at themselves as they clip-clopped along while she barked ‘Left! Right! Left! Right!’

The recruits made slow progress, but finally arrived at the barracks and marched into a parade ground. They were led inside a large building and told to line up with their hands on their hips, while a doctor went down the line giving each of them an injection in both arms. Next, they were taken for a hair inspection, to ensure they were free of head lice and that their hair was the regulation two inches off the collar.

Rae hadn’t been bothered by the injections, but she was bothered now. Even when rolled up, there was no way her hair was going to be two inches above her collar.

‘You’ll need to have that chopped off first thing in the morning,’ the sergeant told her.

‘You’re not cutting my hair!’ she retorted. She viewed her long, dark locks as a source of pride.

‘Aye, we are,’ the woman replied. ‘Report back here at 6 a.m.’

Before Rae had a chance to reply, the women were marched to the mess for dinner. Having lived on meagre rations, she was looking forward to a good feed, but even so she couldn’t help finding the fatty mutton that was served up almost inedible. The recruits were expected to eat every last morsel, however, and a scary-looking woman stood on guard duty by the bin, just in case any of them thought of discreetly disposing of it.

Next they were led to the corrugated-iron Nissen huts where they were to sleep, eleven to a hut. Each girl had a little wooden bed frame on which there were three individual squares of mattress, one next to the other. The girls soon found that these thin squares had an annoying tendency to move if they turned over in the night, throwing out the arrangement and giving them sore hips. Even more troubling was the cold – it was February, and in Scotland that meant sub-zero temperatures in the metal hut.

The next morning, the girls were woken at 5 a.m. as the sergeant flung open the door, letting in the bracing Scottish air, and told them to be ready in ten minutes to be issued with their uniforms. Rae remembered she was expected to report for her haircut, and felt as angry as she had the night before. However much she wanted to fight the Germans, she wasn’t going to put up with this. She opened her suitcase and began to pack.

When the other girls were gone, the sergeant came looking for her. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded.

‘I’m leaving.’

‘I’ve got news for you, lassie,’ her superior replied. ‘You’ve accepted the King’s shilling, so you’re not going anywhere.’

Rae realised there was nothing she could do. Gritting her teeth, she put the suitcase away and followed the sergeant into one of the brick huts. There, she sat in angry silence as her hair was lopped off and fell to the floor.

Next, the recruits were given their uniforms: a tunic jacket, two skirts, three shirts and a tie, along with a pair of clumpy lace-up shoes and several enormous pairs of bloomers, which were known unofficially as ‘passion killers’.

Once the girls were kitted out, they were led into the parade ground for their first drill practice. This time, no giggling or stumbling about was tolerated, as they circuited the ground over and over again, bellowed at by the sergeant, until their feet fell in perfect rhythm.

After a good half-hour, the girls felt ready for a break, but instead they had to set off into the Scottish countryside to wear in their new shoes with a five-mile march. Rae could feel blisters forming, but there was no let-up as the sergeant shouted, ‘Left! Right! Left! Right!’

By the time they returned to the barracks, the young women were exhausted and miserable, and many of them were close to tears. They now greeted the sight of the spartan Nissen huts with relief, and once inside, gingerly peeled the socks off their blistered feet to bathe them. But before long, they could hear the sergeant’s shrill voice again. ‘Everybody out!’ she shouted. ‘Report to parade ground for drill practice!’

It was a routine that grew crushingly familiar as the days and weeks at the barracks wore on, and Rae, like her fellow recruits, learned that her life was no longer her own, but the Army’s. They were told when to march, when to salute, when to eat and sleep and shower. They were forced to run through the Scottish hills in the driving rain, to negotiate a punishing and muddy assault course, to iron their shirts and polish their buttons.

Rae grew more interested, however, once their combat training began. The girls mastered the basics of unarmed combat, learning how to break a hold and throw an enemy onto the floor. They learned how to shoot a rifle, and how to thrust and lunge at the enemy with a bayonet. They practised getting wounded comrades onto stretchers, and mastered first aid. These unladylike tasks prompted much giggling from some of the girls, but Rae was pleased that she was finally learning to become a fighter. ‘Good, Brewer,’ the sergeant shouted, seeing her enthusiastic attempts to spear an imaginary German.

After a few weeks of training, Rae realised she was beginning to enjoy herself, despite the rigorous discipline. The fresh air and physical exertion suited her, and she had even come to take pride in making her uniform look perfect for the daily inspection, keeping her shirts and tunic pressed by laying them under her mattress every night, and polishing her buttons and shoes until they gleamed.

One day, on the assault course, she was racing as fast as she could when she came up to a rope hung over a ditch. Without slowing down to judge the distance she leaped for it and missed, falling onto the ground below. Her whole weight came down on her left ankle, and she cried out in pain as she felt the joint twist.

Rae was helped to the barracks nurse, who iced the ankle and wrapped it in a tight bandage. ‘Keep it elevated,’ the woman told her. ‘You’ll have to rest up for a couple of weeks.’

While some might have been glad of the rest, Rae was frustrated at not being able to join the others. Once her injury was healed, however, there was even worse news.

‘You’ll have to join the next intake,’ her sergeant told her. ‘You can resume your training – from the beginning.’

Rae watched helplessly as the rest of the girls left Glencorse Barracks without her. She joined the new group of fresh-faced recruits and started the endless process of drill practice all over again.

After completing their training in Scotland, the girls were posted around the country. Rae was sent to Derby to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, who were responsible for the supply and maintenance of vehicles and weapons. She couldn’t believe it – after all those weeks of army training, she was confined to a clerical role, processing orders.

In Derby, the ATS girls were billeted in a Victorian orphanage, and it was still as grotty and depressing as it had been when its previous inhabitants were there. The work was dull, involving hour upon hour spent memorising the code numbers that corresponded to every piece of equipment and every part from nuts and bolts upwards. The tedious rote-learning was unbearable for Rae, who desperately wanted to be doing something. Many of the other girls felt the same, and they all tried to put in for transfers.

Luckily, after three weeks, Rae got a call to say she was being sent to Chelmsford, Essex, as part of a bold new experiment: training women in the manly art of welding. Just twelve ATS girls had been chosen from across the whole country, and Rae was among their number thanks to her experience working as a drilling operator back in London. Finally, she would be doing something practical for the war effort.

The girls were sent to technical college to learn their new craft. The teacher had never taught women before and it was clear he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the new group of students. He greeted them awkwardly, but was soon demonstrating how to weld two sheets of aluminium together, holding the flame to a welding rod until it melted into the joint between them, sparks flying off in all directions. Rae was transfixed. This was worlds away from the boring codes she had been learning, and she couldn’t wait to get her hands on one of the torches.

Soon he showed each girl to a bench, on which sat a pair of plates to be welded, along with a welding rod. He distributed gloves and safety goggles and showed them how to hook up their torches to the cylinders that stood on little trolleys behind them. ‘All right, you can light your torches now,’ he told them.

Rae was thrilled when the torch came alive in her hand and she felt the powerful heat of the blue flame. She took her rod and gently touched the flame to it, watching it sizzle and spark and the molten metal drip gently onto the plate below. It was extremely satisfying to see the metal transform under her influence.

At the end of the eight-week training period all but two of the candidates passed, including Rae, who had proved an excellent welder even with her bad eye. Now came their real test: being sent off to depots around the country to ply their new trade among their male counterparts.

Rae was sent to a workshop in Mansfield, a town about fifteen miles north of Nottingham, where she was the only female welder. She couldn’t wait to put her training to use, and before long she found her skills were in demand all over the workshop.

Her first task was to help a corporal with re-bending some springs for a car. Rae warmed the metal with her torch and he teased them back into tightly sprung coils. Next, she was sent to the tin-bashers, who were working on damaged fenders. Again, Rae heated the metal, which was then coaxed into shape much more easily. Then, she was sent to the blacksmith to heat up the metal he was pounding with his hammer. She was soon a popular presence throughout the workshop, and to say thank you, the blacksmith toasted a piece of bread for her on his fire.

Although she was the only female welder, Rae was not the only woman at the workshop, and she was billeted in a house full of other ATS girls. The house was run by a Scottish sergeant by the name of Helen, and sharing a room with Rae were Irene, a motorcycle despatch rider from Birmingham, and Eileen, a Liverpudlian who worked as the colonel’s chauffeur. Rae flourished in the company of both girls, glad that she was no longer the only tomboy.

In the ATS, Rae was entitled to a week’s leave every three months, and she generally visited her family in London. On one such trip, she and her sister Mary decided to go out in the West End, but Rae found that London was not quite how she remembered it. ‘You have so many Yanks down here!’ she remarked in horror.

Living in Mansfield, Rae had only encountered US soldiers occasionally, but with two brothers in the Army she had picked up their prejudice against the GIs. Relations between British and American soldiers were often tense, not least because of the Tommies’ belief that the Yanks were stealing their women. When one GI asked for a pint of beer ‘as fast as the British got out of Dunkirk’, a group of Tommies threw him in the nearest river, shouting, ‘Is that how the Yanks swam at Pearl Harbor?’

Before Rae had joined the ATS, her brother Bill had told her, ‘I never want to see you in uniform, or dating a Yank.’ She had already gone against his first decree, but she had no intention of breaking the second.

When Rae and Mary stopped for a drink in a pub, they made sure to choose a table in a quiet corner, where they could talk without being interrupted. But they had not been there long before a couple of GIs sauntered over.

‘Hey, baby,’ said one. ‘Do you want to see my place back home in Florida?’

He took out a photograph of a palatial beach-front property. Rae could tell immediately that it was a hotel.

‘Oh, lovely,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got one just like that myself!’

The men were not discouraged, however, and were soon finding other subjects to brag about, including their country’s claim to be a beacon of democracy.

‘You Brits are stuck with your King, but we can tell our President to kiss our ass if we want to!’ said the second GI.

‘Don’t you dare mess with royalty,’ Rae said angrily.

‘Hey, we came over here to help you win this war, don’t forget,’ the first young man retorted.

‘Just a minute,’ said Rae. ‘We’d been at it for two years before you came along!’

The men could see their charms were not having the desired effect, and made a hasty exit.

Rae was annoyed enough already, but when she and Mary left the pub an hour later, insult was added to injury. A tipsy GI saw Rae’s uniform and shouted, ‘Oh, look, it’s the ATS – the American Tail Supply!’

Rae had run out of patience with the Americans. She walked straight up to the man and socked him on the jaw.

Soon Rae found that it was impossible to avoid the Yanks in Mansfield too, thanks to the arrival of an American hospital division in nearby Sutton-in-Ashfield. On market day, she and her housemates headed into town and found the ancient square thronging with American uniforms.

They decided to go into the nearest pub to get away from the crowd, but it was even more packed inside. They jostled to the bar and eventually got a round of drinks. ‘Where shall we go?’ Eileen asked.

Rae could see three GIs at the end of the bar. ‘This way,’ she said, heading in the opposite direction. The girls were lucky to get to a table at the front of the pub just as the people sitting at it were leaving.

They had barely taken a sip of their drinks, however, before the three Yanks came over. Rae and Irene were at the end of the table, and to Rae’s annoyance the men started trying to chat them up.

‘Hey, baby, how about you and me get out of here?’ one of them asked her. He was a tall, thick-set American at least ten years older than her, with short-cropped blond hair and small eyes. But if he had been Clark Gable, Rae still wouldn’t have given him a second look. He was a Yank, and therefore not to be trusted.

‘Get lost,’ she told him.

He laughed. ‘Oh, c’mon, don’t be like that, sugar,’ he said. ‘Lemme buy you a drink.’

‘No way,’ she said, turning her back on him and trying to talk to her friends.

But the man seemed to be enjoying her ripostes, and to her annoyance everything she said made him smile more. The GIs were used to rebuffs from English girls, and even had a nickname for their attempts to wear down resistance: the Battle of Britain.

Rae was furious – once again, the Yanks were ruining her day. As soon as she and her friends had finished their first drink they left as quickly as they could.

But the men were not so easily deterred. All the way back to the girls’ billet on Layton Avenue, they followed them, calling, ‘Oh, come on girls, we’re lonely!’

‘Just ignore them,’ muttered Rae, relieved when they got back and could shut the door behind them.

Rae didn’t give the men a second thought, but a couple of days later there was a knock on the door.

She went and opened it, only to find the big, thick-set American on the other side, smiling at her.

‘Hey, baby, can I take you for a drink?’ he asked.

‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ Rae replied.

‘Oh, c’mon, give me a chance,’ he said, laughing. ‘What’s your name, sugar? I’m Raymond.’

‘I’m not interested,’ said Rae, and slammed the door.

A few days later, there was another knock. Once again, she opened the door to see the GI’s big, grinning face looking down at her.

‘I thought I told you to get lost!’ she said, pushing the door shut.

Raymond stopped knocking for Rae, but when she left the house to go to the cinema the following Friday, there he was, hanging around on the pavement.

‘I don’t believe it!’ said Rae angrily. She turned on her heel and marched straight back into the house before he had a chance to speak to her.

After several weeks, Rae’s admirer still hadn’t given up, and he had become a regular fixture outside her billet. ‘There’s your boyfriend again!’ the girls teased whenever they spied him from behind the curtains.

‘Why don’t you just put him out of his misery and go out with him?’ suggested Helen. It was clear he wasn’t going anywhere until he got what he wanted.

The next time Rae saw him, she was heading to the cinema again.

‘Hey, wanna go to the movies?’ he asked her, smiling. Rae sighed. She couldn’t be bothered to go through the whole rigmarole again. Nor did she want to miss the film. Maybe Helen was right and she should just put him out of his misery – then he would see he wasn’t going to get anywhere with her and he wouldn’t bother asking again.

‘Well, I’m going anyway, so you might as well come along,’ she said.

Raymond didn’t need to hear any more. He was already by her side, his grin bigger than ever.

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