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

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      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.

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