A number of bookshops in Britain seem to be selling reproductions of the advisory books that were given to Allied servicemen readying for D-Day in 1944 and for U.S. Army Air Force personnel arriving in Britain in 1942. I bought a copy of the latter and it is, in its way, a wonderful snapshot of how Britain was viewed by Americans more than 60 years ago and makes me wonder if many of the descriptions could still apply. The book is called Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain. Here’s a couple of paragraphs:
“A British woman officer or non-commissioned officer can – and often does – give orders to a man private. The men obey smartly and know it is no shame. For British women have proven themselves in this way… Now you know why British soldiers respect the women in uniform. When you see a girl in khaki or air-force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic – remember she didn’t get it for knitting more socks than anyone else in Ipswich.”
“Do not be offender if Britishers do not pay as full respects to national or regimental colours as Americans do. The British do not treat the flag as such an important symbol as we do. But they pay more frequent respect to their national anthem. In peace or war “God Save the King” (to the same tune as “Our America”) is played at the conclusion of all public gatherings such as theatre performances. The British consider it bad form not to stand at attention, even if it means missing the last bus. If you are in ahurry, leave before the national anthem is played. That’s considered alright.”
The book is printed from the original typescript that was used by the War Department in the States. Some of the descriptions now may strike us as a sort of cozy, simplified portrayal, but actually I was rather impressed by the strenuous efforts of the author(s) to describe the privations of a nation at war, its habits, differences and qualities (I love its descriptions of attitudes to sport). It also struck me that the US authorities clearly felt it was necessary to take steps to educate servicemen and women a bit about the people they would be meeting as allies in the war against Hitler. While those who have reprinted the book may think they are making some sort of clever-dick post-modernist point by re-issuing these things, I find them rather moving.
By coincidence, on the same day that I bought the book, I drove up to see friends in Cambridgeshire. About a few miles away from the house of my friends, I passed by a rather neat row of hedges, screening a rather fine little white-washed building. The Stars and Stripes were flying from a masthead. I slowed down and realised that it was one of the cemeteries to commemorate the U.S. aircrews who flew hundreds of missions from the flatlands of East Anglia in aircraft such as B-17 Flying Fortresses or P-51 Mustangs. There were hundreds of such airbases, some of which are now either just strips of busted concrete in a wheatfield, although a few preserved airfields remain, complete with the old control towers and huts. On my father’s farm in Suffolk we used to find the odd .50 shell case that had been ejected from a passing aircraft. Chuck Yeager, the legendary U.S. Mustang fighter jock and test pilot, flew from Leiston, a few miles away from my old home.
Some of the men who lie in the soil of Cambridgeshire probably had read that guidebook and wondered about the country they were operating from all those years ago. At a time when cheap anti-American bromides fill up the airwaves and newsprint, it is no bad thing to reflect on the debt we ‘Britishers’ owe to those who came over to this island in 1942. May they all rest in peace.
I think the book was a good idea. Americans back then or even today don’t understand the severe rationing the British people had to endure in WWII.
… and for seven years afterwards under a socialist regime – longer than the West Germans.
it is no bad thing to reflect on the debt we ‘Britishers’ owe to those who came over to this island in 1942.
Must… resist… war debt… cheap shot….arggh.
Too late. Yes, the US servicemen gave their lives, but the US government only lent us tanks. Hey ho.
I’d love to see the books issued to US (and British, I assume) servicemen in the Middle East now…
I have often thought of those future days when all the old records and archives are finally available, and some historian(s) attempts to describe the massive turmoil and monumental slaughter that pretty much define the 20th century.
For all its ups and downs, one of the most significant forces for the preservation of civilization as a moral enterprise for the progress and freedom of all human beings was the alliance, in peace but especially in war, of the British and American people.
While far, far from perfect, either separately or together, there can be little doubt that a world ruled by the adversaries of that partnership would have been a dark and brutal place indeed. It was, as Churchill described, the finest hour this culture has ever had.
Rest in peace, yes. But even more, rest in that old but now disdained value—at rest in honor as a servant of a truly noble cause.
In these current, trying times, I would suggest it is not courage that we need to rediscover, but our own sense of nobility and honor.
Not so. Rationing in the United States may not have been as extreme, but it did exist and was very strict.
Grow up. The interest rates on those loans were reasonable. The US didn’t end up cutting off its right arm to save Britain, but why should it have? Britain at the time wasn’t exactly the US’s biggest fan. Low interest means that the US was a net donor – maybe not to the extent that you would have liked, but a donor nonetheless. Britain is also partly responsible for getting itself into the mess that required the loans in the first place. A stronger anti-Hitler line from Britain and France early on could have saved everyone a lot of trouble.
Sorry but there is no comparision. The key word is severe rationing. Nothing the US experienced in WWII came even close. If the Battle of the Atlantic had been lost, Britain would have been brought to its knees and forced to come to terms. In early 1943 that looked like a real possibility.
“..lent us tanks….” A “loan” was the best deal Franklin D. Roosevelt could get through an isolationist pre-Pearl Harbor congress. That was the reality. He did as much as he could.
Good point, Guy. We are arguably still dealing with the consequences.
J writes:
I know. Such a shame they did not give us all we wanted on a plate. Seriously J, that is a cheap shot. There was no way that Roosevelt could force the pace of America’s entry into war: it is a fact of reality that resistence to entry was strong in America, across the political party divide, right up until Pearl Harbour. Once the US did get involved, the floodgates of its material abundance opened and was crucial in winning the war.
Harsh maybe, but also true.
Rationing: yes, I don’t see how it can be meaningfully compared with what existed in the US, though there were privations.
One thing that struck me about the book, as I think VeryRetired gets, is the nobility of tone. There was plenty to bitch and argue about at the time, but what struck me about that little volume was the realisation that rubbing the Brits’ face in their own misfortunes was not clever, not smart strategy, and likely to backfire. It would not be a bad idea if a bit more of that attitude existed right now in parts of the British and American chattering classes. I am not holding my breath.
In the chattering classes, probably not. Probably not even then. But for the US and UK military, I suspect the respect levels are mutually exceedingly high, even if there is a bit of teasing back and forth about ducking when the american are firing… 😉
The cemetery with the ‘rather fine little whitewashed building” is presumably the very fine American Military Cemetery at Madingley, where many of the dead and missing from American forces based in Britain in the Second World War are remembered. There are nearly four thousand graves and on the Wall of the Missing are the names of 5,125 who did not return. Mr. Pearce’s casual drive-by mention of it seems to show a very shallow interest in the actual events of the time.
One thing that stands out about the actual substance of the advice quoted is the recognition of the cultural differences between what was at the time a basically monoethnic society and a very culturally diverse group of young men. I often notice a tendency on British people who comment on the US to forget that Americans are not simply off-brand English. I recall comments contrasting the stiff upper lip response to the 7/7 attacks to the emotional atmosphere following 9/11, which seem to blithely ignore what could be expected in a city with an Italian mayor, full of more Italians, every other kind of Latin, Jews, Arabs and people from many other very demonstrative cultures. I notice the same attitude in comments on the Guardian – God help me, I know, but know the enemy, know yourself etc.
“Must… resist… war debt… cheap shot….arggh”
You are so right! But remember, some people tend to assume that WWII occurred in Europe, when in fact the war in the Pacific and in Asia was a bigger fight in terms of civilian casualties, geographical scale of the campaigns, and frankly in the strategic stakes for the US. In other words, instead of talking about the soldiers and tanks that the US did send to Britain, can we for once talk about the soldiers and tanks that neither Britain nor France sent to fight the Japanese – and an impotent little garrison in Singapore is not going to cut it.
As an American veteran of the USAF (though not of that generation), I want to say thanks for the kind words. We know we can often count on our British, Canadian, and Aussie (at least enough of them), to recognise the effort, even when we still persist in being… American.
I’ve heard similar sentiments from fellow anglosphere friends over the years, and even when they rip into our foreign policy, domestic policy (particularly gun control or lack thereof), it always comes down to, “but if you or your country was stuck in an alley somewhere and surrounded by ne’er-do-wells, who would you want at your back?” We always know what the answer is, debate over.
can we for once talk about the soldiers and tanks that neither Britain nor France sent to fight the Japanese – and an impotent little garrison in Singapore is not going to cut it.
Your comment may apply to France, to Britain no. It is telling that the many British and Empire soldiers who fought for 3 years in Burma call themselves the forgotten army, as from your drivel above you have clearly forgotten or are simply ignorant of their sacrifice. Look up the Battle of Kohima for starters, a long way from Singapore.
Robert, don’t spoil this thread by being a jerk, please. I made no elaborate reference to this cemetery. I had not come across it before. The whole point of the article, as should be obvious, was the coincidence of reading this little volume and then, by chance, driving past such a cemetery. What did you want, a 1,000-page essay? My feelings about this issue are genuine, as any fair reading of my article should make clear.
There is just no pleasing some folk, I guess.
It wasn’t a complete love in when US forces came to join the fight, in Australia there was a saying about US servicemen “Over paid, over sexed, over here!”. Incidents such as The Battle of Brisbane demonstrate as much as later generations may have the utmost respect for our American brothers in arms, the sentiment at the time was not necessarily so rosy.
I often wonder what made Australians and Americans to volunteer to serve in lands so far away, and I still do. War was and is an adventure for many I guess, and how much duty and patriotism comes into play is an endless debate.
Lest we forget.
“I recall comments contrasting the stiff upper lip response to the 7/7 attacks to the emotional atmosphere following 9/11, which seem to blithely ignore what could be expected in a city with an Italian mayor, full of more Italians, every other kind of Latin, Jews, Arabs and people from many other very demonstrative cultures”
Ummm, London is full of Italians, every other kind of Latin, Jews and Arabs not to mention various other demonstrative-type peoples like Irish, West Indians and West Africans…
Remember, 9/11 happened first, so 7/7 wasn’t such a shock. No wailfest necessary. 9/11 was new and horrifying attack technology; 7/7 was ordinary urban bombings, and not a lot different than IRA bombings Britishers were already accustomed to.
I was in England when 9/11 happened. The WWII generation folks were the kindest in expressing their solidarity with America, always mentioning how America saved Britain in the war and the near economic collapse postwar.
(The hunger and the near economic collapse with its concomitant lack of opportunity is why my father, a WWII veteran of the Royal Navy, left England and went to Canada and eventually the US.)
American military cemeteries are always (in my experience) peaceful, respectful and beautifully maintained places, and a few minutes of quiet reflection spent in one are not time wasted.
There were not-a-few public-order problems with US servicemen posted in the UK during WW2 and what would you expect? The US enlisted men were better-dressed and better-paid than many UK Army officers, they generally had access to many of the small comforts which the British population had been denied for years, and so there were many conflicts – often (usually) over women, which is only what you would expect with huge bodies of healthy young men involved. There were at least two major gun battles involving US troops stationed in the UK in 1943, and incidents like the Hulten/Jones escapade speak to some of the things that went on, most of which were heavily censored. The US military was still segregated at that time, and the added effect of large numbers of black troops in engineer regiments, especially in the South West and Northern Ireland, in a nation which had no legal colour bar and which was depleted of young men, is not hard to imagine.
Whoever wrote this book did a very good job. It could have been far worse.
llater,
llamas
There was rationing in the United States, but in the sort of place Chuck Yeager came from government officials who tried to be too strict would be dealt with quite hard.
As for Britian, rationing of bread started in 1946 – so it is a bit difficult to see what it had to do with World War II (1939-1945).
Certainly such things as German submarine activity caused shortages in Britain (and without the efforts of the Royal Navy, Royal Canadian, Royal Australian, Royal New Zealand – and [of course] the United States Navy, things would have been a lot worse) – but rationing was basically a power grab – as post war rationing proves.
Rigged Pound / Dollar exchange rate (trying to pretend the Pound was worth more than it was), the costs of trying to build a Welfare State whilst maintaining the military and just ideology were the basis of post war rationing.
A lot of people wanted to do such things in the United States – but the Republicans who took Congress in the midterm elections of 1946 would have nothing to do with it (Robert Taft gets the credit for opposing statism in the post war world, but actually men like Sentator John Bricker had a much better record).
Besides, many Americans were basically at the “tar and feather” stage when it came to government rationing and other regulators by the late 1940’s.
Chuck Yeager’s father shows an interesting point – so staunch a Republican that he refused to shake President Truman’s hand (not the great shock that it seems – it is forgotten today that Truman had strong links to criminal activity in his home state, and his Administration was far more corrupt than the Harding Administration that the establishment historians complain about).
Many libertarians today confuse the modern Federal government with that of 1861 – when West Virginia choose to break away from the rest of Virginia and side with the Union it was NOT supporting the “bad guys”.
Sure Lincoln was statist (by the standards of his time – not be modern standards) – but so was the Confederacy.
In fact there were HIGHER “progressive” income taxes and MORE fiat money inflation in the Confederacy than in the Union.
Also the mountain people of the West remembered the prewar policy of Virginia – lots of “internal improvements” in the East (for the politically connected)paid for by taxes that hit the West.
Nor can SLAVERY be ignored (for all the efforts to explain it away).
It is no accident that it was the area that became West Virginia where slave owners were rare.
Even the West Virginia Constitution of 1872 was very conservative.
It was only much later that West Virginia started getting big Federal welfare payments (nothing much before the 1930’s – although the unionization of coal mining showed the writing was on the wall for the State).
Even today West Virginia is not reliably leftist – have a look at their attitudes to such things as “gun control” or to the A.T.F.
It was not his big spending ways that allowed George Walker Bush to carry West Virginia in 2000 0r 2004 – anymore than it was his support for trade taxes and a
national bank that made the place side with Lincoln.
Things are a lot more complicated than that.
I see I missed out the South African navy above – not surprising perhaps, we British are taught to think nothing good about white South Africans (whatever language they speak).
Just as we are taught to think nothing good of white Rhodesians. I wonder if people really thought that Ian Smith (ex Prime Minister of Rhodesia) was born with a face like that – rather than getting it from a burning aircraft as he fought the Germans.
But at least we are allowed to honour the black and brown people (who were just as brave) who fought for George V.
Sadly the sacrifice of (for example) the vast numbers of Indian troops (not conscripts) is not much marked in India (the political types who took over on Independence prefer the handfull of Indians who choose to fight for the Japanese).
The 14th Army (Slim’s men) of whatever race are indeed “the forgotten army”.
However, it is true that Europe was given the priority in terms of resouces.
Nimitz for the navy and MacArthur for the army were kept on short of supplies (and encouraged to come into conflict) – at this was a choice made in Washington D.C.
Not I would have liked the men in Europe (including the men of the United States Army Air Force – later the United States Air Force) to run short of supplies.
As for Britian, it has to be remembered that Britian was not at war with Japan till December 1941, whereas Britian had been at war with Germany since September 1939.
So naturally resources tended to get directed to the struggle with Germany.
However, some moves are very hard to understand.
For example, the choice to send Spitfire aircraft that had been earmarked for Singapore to Stalin in Russia.
There was not a “pathetic” force in Singapore – there were very large ground forces (particularly of British and Australian troops) in the area.
They were badly led (the British general commanding was very much a B.list man), but what really doomed Imperial forces in the area was Japanese control of the air.
When the main source of Sinapore’s water was captured the commanding General (Arthur Percival) decided that everything was hopeless, but troops continued to be landed in Singapore till the day of the surrender (something that angers Australians to this day as their soldiers were being sent into a fight where the British commander had already, in his mind, given up – although it should be remembered that far more British troops than Australians were doomed in Singapore).
The Japanese commander (whose name I forget) was rather suprised by Percival’s surrender (in spite of Japanese control of the air) – as the Japanese were outnumbered by British Imperial forces and were running low on supplies. Indeed the seemingly magical speed of Japanese movement depended on capturing enemy supplies – something that Slim was to exploit later on (when he worked out how it was the Japanese moved so fast).
As for Austalian troops:
It should be remembered that it was the Australians in New Guinea (and nonregular Australians at that) who first proved that the Japanese could be taken on and defeated in jungle warfare.
The Australians lacked resources and experience.
But they made up for this with strong leadership (although the commander was unfairly attacked at the time) and a simple bloody minded refusal to be defeated.
Slim (the British General who fought the Japanese in India and Burma) took note of the Australian example – it proved that the Japanese could be beaten.
Paul Marks:
Bread rationing came about after the war because large amounts of grain were being sent to Germany to stave off a famine that would have happened had intervention not been sent.
It was very much a consequence of the war. Mayby we should have let them all starve instead?
What a tangent! But OK, since it got brought up, it’s true what you say, but these things were much more controversial in the Confederacy than in the Union. They were tolerated because the Confederacy was created in the buildup to a war the loss of which would (and and of course did) mean the end of the new nation. At least two states (Tennessee and North Carolina) in fact refused to pay their Confederate taxes – not for lack of committment to the Confederacy (North Carolina lost more men than any other state in that war), but on the principle that central taxes were opposed to the ideals of states’ rights and local control.
It’s important to keep in mind that there was then and is now a divide between the plantation states (now called the “Deep South”) and the others. The plantation states were primarily concerned with keeping slavery around because their economies depended on it (or so they thought). Other members of the Confederacy fought because they believed in the cause of a loose association of states and resented Washington’s control over their internal affairs. It is doubtful that fiat money and high progressive taxes would have lasted much longer than the time needed to clean up had the South won the war – mostly because keeping central taxes in place would have sparked a rebellion in states like Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and Arkansas.
Joshua – you are quite right I go off at tangents.
I believe that the term for my type of mind is a “diverse thinking” (as opposed to a lateral thinker – who is more useful in normal situations).
I fully accept that I oversimpliefied a the North V South thing (I was trying to correct the “Union bad”, “Confederacy good” thing one gets from a lot of libertarians these days).
I will also accept that slavery might not have lasted if the Southern States have been allowed to leave the Union (which, constitutionally, they should have been) -as there would no longer have been any fugitive slave laws in the North (and those Northern States that still had a few slaves would have been under massive pressure to end the practice) and the border being too long to police.
Slavery may well have just fallen apart in an independent South. As Salmon P. Chase was fond of pointing out it was not so much a question of “banning slavery” as slavery being a series of common law crimes (unlawful imprisonment, assault and so on) that armed power in the South (and to an extent in the North) had to prop up.
Which way a State jumped in the war was often hard to predict.
For example, most people expected Kentucky to side with the Confederacy – indeed there is even a star on the Confederate battle flag for it.
However, a Confederate army entered the State before the Union army did, and would not leave when ordered to do so by the Legislature of the Commonwealth – so Kentucky (in spite of the Confederate force being commanded by a Kentucky man) declared for the Union and so fought.
Someone above (I forget who) repeated the old bullshit about the United States not really helping Britiain in W.W.II (just loans or whatever) – actually F.D.R.’s policy cost the United States a great deal and right from 1940 (not 1941).
Earl Harding talks about Germans starving.
Well the hunger blockade of Germany (which, for some reason, did not seem to greatly bother President Wilson when he was complaining about German U.boats) was actually carried on into 1919 (the shooting have stopped in 1918) – so much for deep compasion for German civilians.
There had been no great concern about diverting ships and resources from India during the World War II Bengal famine (now that was a propaganda gift to the Congress party people).
As for the post World War II period – some food aid was indeed sent from Britian, but one must also remember the vast web of regulations imposed in the British zone of occupation (the regulations would, of course, retard the abilty of the Germans to grow their own food or to pay for imports).
It is true that Ludwig Erhard (when he got up and acted on that Sunday morning in 1948) had to get rid of a lot American regulations – but the British zone had been worse. There were also about four times as many administrators in the British zone as in the American zone (these days, I suspect, Americans would be just as bad).
As for food aid to Germany causing rationing in Britian – well it is another excuse (to go with bad weather a few years later [the timewarp explination] and other such).
Fixed exchange rates (i.e. pretending the Pound was worth what it was not), and price rigging (price controls) internally = shortages.
It is not complicated.
For all the talk of “the Dollar shortage” and other crap.
On a tangent – remember H. Beam Piper in “Space Viking”?
He reasoned that genetic decline could produce a population most of whom could not grasp a basic economic point (they would, of course, operate according to economic laws – but they would not understand these laws if they were explained to them).
But this genetic explination for statism never convinced me – I am a cultural decline man. And I do not hold that the cultural decline has been produced by genetic decline.
Although I do not like to think about daytime television viewers.
“can we for once talk about the soldiers and tanks that neither Britain nor France sent to fight the Japanese – and an impotent little garrison in Singapore is not going to cut it.
Your comment may apply to France, to Britain no. It is telling that the many British and Empire soldiers who fought for 3 years in Burma call themselves the forgotten army, as from your drivel above you have clearly forgotten or are simply ignorant of their sacrifice.”
Their sacrifice? You don’t win by sacrificing, you win by getting “the other poor son-of-a-bitch to die for his country”. Sacrifice is for losers, and it is usually the result of command incompetence. Where is cannot be avoided and is not the result of command incompetence, it is always due to the policy incompetence of civilian political leaders. Sacrifice is not somethng to be proud of; it is something to be angry about, the way we are angry about miltary deaths in Iraq. By your drivel you have shown your complete ignorance of military affairs, Noel. You said it yourself – “forgotten army”. That hardly sounds like any kind of significant contribution to a war.
Heroism and all that Tennyson crap are not what war is about, and they have nothing to do with destroying enemies.
“Ummm, London is full of Italians, every other kind of Latin, Jews and Arabs not to mention various other demonstrative-type peoples like Irish, West Indians and West Africans…”
London is full of Italians the way that New York is? What proportion of the population of London is of Italian ancestry? How many have been Lord Mayor? London has every other kind of Latin? I was unaware it had Puerto Rican, Dominican or Colombian neighborhoods. Does it have Mexican neighborhoods too? And do you really think the Irish are demonstrative in the way Italians are? That doesn’t sound like my Irish family.
Not to get too nitpicky, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. Kentucky had two competing state legilatures throughout the war – one of which was accepted into the Confederacy. It didn’t actually end up meeting, really, and there’s some question how much of the state it represented, but Kentucky is very much a “border state,” despite having never officially left the Union. The case of Maryland counterbalances your argument that the Confederates invaded Kentucky (which they did, no denying it) and drove it to the Union. Maryland was a full slave state (as was Delaware) and might have joined the Confederacy but for the fact that Lincoln ordered troops to reinforce the area around the capitol and to directly threaten Baltimore, effectively killing any secessionist thoughts it may have had in the shell. He further suspended several constitutional protections and jailed pro-Southern agitators there.
I agree, and I hope my comments weren’t taken as trying to justify the southern cause. Nevertheless, I think the general reporting (at least in the United States) of the history of that war shows a pro-Union bias that needs to be corrected.
Good comment Jashua.
Joshua – not Jashua.
Now I can not even control my hands.