How the GI influx shaped Britain's view of Americans

[Gerald]

It is now 70 years since GIs first landed on British soil to join their allies during WWII. Before the war, ordinary British people only knew Americans as the gangsters and heroes from the silver screen. They were in for a shock.

The first GIs landed on Britain's shores in 1942 and brought with them candy, Coca-Cola, cigarettes and nylon.

GIs were reportedly very generous. With average salaries more than five times that of a British soldier and no living expenses to worry about, there was plenty of time for parties.

GI veteran Lester Gaiter recalls: "We would crash their parties, drink their beer, flirt with their women".

And their generous nature made them alluring to women - around 70,000 British women became GI brides. "The girls went mad. They never had such a good time. They had never been with fellows who had so much money," says Prudence Portman, who met many GIs during the war.

Children would flock around them and cry "got any gum, chum?"

Kenneth Pullen was 14 when the GIs arrived in London and remembers that it "came as a shock", because nobody knew "what an American looked like face to face".

He believed Americans would all be "very tall, immaculately dressed, run about the country shooting Indians, or shooting at policeman round Chicago…"

The reality, of course, was "completely different", says Pullen.

Even the Times newspaper explained to its readers in 1942 that GIs were "friendly and simple" rather than "Hollywood stars or two-gun Texans with five-gallon hats".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20160819


Note: 3 November 2012 Last updated at 00:21 GMT