| Contents > Australian WWII War Brides of American Servicemen: Myths, Stereotypes and Realities by Robyn Arrowsmith |
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Barbara Gleason remembers (B. Gleason, Interview, September 20, 2001) the six months waiting period and having to be investigated. She had a thick ‘stack of papers’ including her parents’ permission, so many character references, and a police background check. She relates how her husband’s Commanding Officer would not give his permission for them to marry: ‘[He] told Jim he would never let him get married to an Australian…there wasn’t anything we could do about it.’
For Dorothy Berry, from Crookwell, New South Wales, and her American boyfriend it was a ‘whirlwind’ romance. She recalls (D. Berry, Interview, September 6, 2001) ‘we got together immediately and set up house, but the navy wouldn’t let us get married!’ After six months’ wait, the Captain still refused permission, so they decided they would ‘fool the whole world’ and have a baby to expedite matters. Dorothy tells how this made no difference, and she was four months pregnant when they finally married in August 1943.
Families of girls about to marry American soldiers, were visited by American Red Cross officials and asked to sign a form approving their daughter’s prospective marriage, guaranteeing that they would fully support their daughter, without calling on charities or the U.S. Army for assistance during his absence, in the event of his death, or in the event he is ordered to the United States’. The prospective wife had to certify that she was single, had never been married, that she was self-supporting and would not seek assistance from charities or the U.S. Army. As well, the girl and her parents had to sign an acceptance of the understanding that the U.S. Government made ‘no promise or guarantee whatsoever’ to transport the prospective wife, nor any subsequent dependants, to the United States, either during or after the war (Street, p. 231-232). This did little to calm any of the young women’s anxieties.
Wartime wedding ceremonies were very different to those in peacetime, and for most war brides the introduction of laws, regulations and endless red tape resulted in the importance of the traditional white wedding gown, with its symbolic qualities of purity and virginity giving way to expedience, economy, and availability.
In 1942 the government’s austerity policy intensified wartime shortages, and saw the rationing of luxury goods and the issue of coupons (McKernan, M., 1995, p. 148), making it difficult for war brides to make wedding preparations. In place of the traditional white wedding with ‘all the trimmings’, borrowed clothes, small gatherings, and ceremonies conducted in haste were the order of the day.
Edna Pickerell (known as Teddy), born in Boonah, Queensland, describes (E. Pickerell, Interview, September 11, 2001) the atmosphere of the time, when her American boyfriend proposed three months after they met: ‘Things at that time seemed to be more urgent – you didn’t have time to wait and think clearly.’ Teddy recalls (2001) ‘there was a lot of red tape’ and she found the pre-wedding arrangements quite rigorous. As she had enlisted in the Air Force she needed permission to marry from her commanding officer; permission from her parents as she was not twenty-one; permission from her fiancé’s commanding officer, who also interviewed Teddy; and finally, they went to see the minister to be married. It took a matter of months to organise all this paper work, without which he would not marry them.
Wedding arrangements often had to be made with little notice. Cynthia Peters grew up in Sydney and had been engaged to an American serviceman for a year when he returned from action in the Philippines. Calling from Brisbane, he said: ‘I’m coming down so we can be married!’ Cynthia had three days notice and she remembers (C. Peters, Interview, September 29, 2001) the urgency of the time: ‘Of course you didn’t send out invitations in those days. You got on the phone and said “Can you come to a wedding – next Tuesday?”’
Commodities such as petrol were in short supply and honeymoons away were rare. Mary Bourne married her American husband in Albany, Western Australia in February 1943, and remembers (M. Bourne, Interview, September 29, 2001) how her honeymoon trip was disrupted by petrol shortages and how ‘the taxi driver had to stop in the middle of the road…to put charcoal in the burner.’
Marilyn Lake (1995, p .62) has argued that after the war, rather than returning to the old, traditional ‘roles’, women were ‘invited to step into an alluring, exciting future’, based on consumption and sexuality. Certainly, the emerging consumer culture which presented a new glamorous image of femininity gave women the opportunity, but not all women were able to take advantage of this invitation.
In the case of the Australian war brides in this study, their new-found freedom and independence was restricted by wartime regulations and red tape. In transplanting their lives in Australia to the United States of America, rather than stepping into ‘an alluring and exciting future’, they largely maintained the traditional roles of wife, mother and homemaker.
After crowded and mostly uncomfortable sea voyages to America, some women had to adapt to unfamiliar and sometimes isolated or hostile environments where they were expected to step into a traditional domestic role. Most of these women were challenged by an array of difficulties: uncertainties, delays, isolation, subsequent homesickness and financial constraint.
In drawing on the oral testimony of Australian WWII war brides to highlight the reality of their experiences, it can be clearly seen how they differed from popular images of the ‘GI Bride’, based on contemporary wartime myths and stereotypes. The power of these perceptions can be seen in the continuation of the stereotypical image of the war bride which persisted long after the war was over.
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| Contents > Australian WWII War Brides of American Servicemen: Myths, Stereotypes and Realities by Robyn Arrowsmith |