Blitz Kids (45 page)

Whilst, during the pre-war years, venereal disease had been found primarily in London and the major ports, between 1939 and 1945 the spread of disease was not confined to these areas. East Sussex medical authorities were placed in a quandary: the issue for the courts was whether a girl was in need of ‘care and protection’, not whether she carried venereal disease. Thus, the question of treatment of disease only arose once in care. Disease itself could not be the sole reason. They wished to prevent the spread of venereal disease but it was difficult to monitor cases of likely infection due to patient confidentiality. Only if a girl was remanded to care by the local magistrates could they enquire on her medical condition. Otherwise, she would remain free to infect as many people as she chose, until she sought treatment. The Ministry of Health raised its concern that some in Brighton’s council were unwilling to take open action against the girls associating with soldiers, and possibly contracting venereal diseases, for fear of sullying the area’s reputation as a holiday town.

The question of how to deal with the infected girls was something of a moral minefield. As seen, the courts had limited powers and there was a genuine, long-accepted need for confidentiality. Soldiers were supposed to inform the military authorities of their condition, both in
order to ensure treatment and to facilitate the tracking of sources of infection. In itself, this was difficult enough and instead many soldiers had private treatment for disease, concerned that they might have their pay deducted whilst receiving official treatment. Furthermore, it was difficult for men who had picked up both a girl and a disease whilst on leave to recall the girl’s name after one night – or a few minutes – of passion. One Canadian soldier failed to follow the correct channels when he reported to the police that he had contracted syphilis through a girl, who was subsequently found to be just fifteen years old. As a result, the Canadian was charged with carnal knowledge of an underage girl. Had he gone through the correct channel, reported to his medical officer for treatment and supplied her details to the authorities, he would have avoided the charge.

In 1942 the Royal Air Force reported a 25 per cent increase in venereal disease cases over its pre-war figures. One Bomber Command station outside Doncaster was found to have the exceptional infection rate of 48 cases per 1,000 men. What was important was that the infection rates were four times higher among aircrew than ground staff, and that Bomber Command had proportionately more cases than Fighter Command. The authorities were clear as to the reasons behind the figures: the hazardous conditions endured by the young airmen risking their lives in the skies over Europe made them casual about their off-duty behaviour. As one senior officer put it: ‘youth then feels it is now time to have the last fling before death’.
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The fatalistic aircrew were seen: ‘lolling about the messes with an eye on the clock, waiting for the moment when they can dash out of camp and head for the nearest town and bar’.
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The ‘moral laxity’ of these airmen, and subsequent exposure to venereal disease, was reported not to come from professional street-walkers but from local girls the aircrew met in pubs. These were often girls between sixteen and eighteen, effectively ‘amateurs’ working in factories who found life: ‘both amusing and profitable in the company of aircrew’.
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They were the girls who went on pub-crawls, following the aircrew as they moved from pub to pub as the beer ran out.

By January 1943, the issue of man-hours lost on treating infected aircrews resulted in Air Marshal Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris notifying his commanders about it. In particular he noted his concern over how
the men removed from operations to receive treatment meant the break-up of crews, resulting in a serious impact upon morale. At a meeting of the Air Council in October 1943 the subjects under discussion included how to prevent the spread of VD. Suggestions included controlling sixteen- to eighteen-year-old girls by introducing compulsory pre-call up training and education in organizations such as the Girls Training Corps. The Ministry of Labour soon pointed out that controlling the movement of girls under eighteen would be impossible to enforce since it would interfere with their work. The raising of the age of consent from sixteen to eighteen, thus placing a legal constraint on sexual relations between the ‘good-time girls’ and the airmen was also mooted, but this was deemed impossible to put in place since it was enshrined in law that girls could marry at sixteen.

The increasing levels of venereal disease led the American military authorities to attempt to clamp down on both the professional prostitutes and their amateur counterparts, the ‘good-time girls’, who were described as: ‘young girls who were merely out for a good time and knew that American soldiers had plenty of money’.
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As the police soon realized, it wasn’t what the girls had set out to do. It seemed that their behaviour usually started innocently, with teenage girls going out after work to meet soldiers for fun and excitement. The soldiers were just looking for female companionship – anything to break the monotony of living in a barrack-room full of men. Some reports linked the ‘easy conquest’ of British girls to cultural differences. On ‘dates’ in the United States girls tended to be heavily complimented and yet, almost by ritual, were expected to end the night with their virtue intact. British girls, not understanding this game, took all the compliments at face value, were easily wooed and succumbed to advances, often to the surprise of American soldiers.

These initially innocent encounters often ended up in sex and, in some cases, spiralled into part-time prostitution and, almost inevitably, venereal disease. For many, prostitution had simply started out as ‘an easy means of making money’.
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Investigations revealed that most VD infections among US servicemen were picked up on leave and around one third originated in London. Medical staff searching for the source of infections found that out of 101 men questioned, 25 named ‘Piccadilly Commandos’ they had picked up on leave.

A further 27 per cent of American VD cases were contracted in just three locations. The first two, Liverpool and Bristol, were obvious. They were large ports in western England, through which large numbers of American servicemen had entered the UK. In Bristol the Deputy Chief Constable had complained about the behaviour of girls as young as thirteen who threw themselves at soldiers. The third town of the group was a seeming anomaly: Bedford. The small market town, positioned between East Anglia and the East Midlands, was nobody’s idea of a hotbed of vice. However, its location had made it the focus of the American military. First had come the military engineers who had constructed the buildings and laid the runways for a swathe of airfields in the region. Once the airfields were operational the town became a place for American aircrew to spend their time. Latterly, the town was home to soldiers living in civilian billets.

Whilst investigating a 1943 murder, local police learned something of the behaviour of the Americans and their girlfriends. When giving a statement one local girl described how she and her boyfriend, Private Hyrum Moody, had gone to a secluded spot beside the river, but had left after they noticed local boys hanging around and peeping out from the bushes. She complained to Private Moody that there were, ‘some nosy devils around here’.
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When interviewed, one of the boys admitted that at the same time, he had been watching another soldier in the grass with a local girl. When he spotted them, he had left his bike then came back to watch them: ‘I have been doing this kind of thing for some months every night and on Sunday afternoons and evenings.’ He and his mates called watching the couples in the fields ‘mooching’, and shared stories of what they had seen the couples doing. The boys’ voyeuristic enthusiasm meant they sometimes stayed in the fields ‘mooching’ until almost midnight. As Private Moody told the police, many of his friends had complained about ‘peeping toms’ and he had himself noticed people watching the couples near a stone bridge on the edge of the town. It was evidence that supported the view of the secretary of the British Social Hygiene Council who had reported that ‘men and their girlfriends have nowhere but the streets to amuse themselves’.
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Public displays of sex came as a surprise to many. Although it had always been an issue for courting couples with nowhere to go for
privacy, the war seemed to have loosened morals. One young schoolteacher, Denys Roberts, filling time between leaving public school and receiving his call-up papers, recalled how the school cricket pitch was his one source of pride. Going out to inspect the wicket he stumbled upon a courting couple:

Upon confronting the couple, he discovered the young lady was the school maid. Despite his complaints, her partner scared the young schoolteacher away.

He subsequently found that the pupils used a telescope to watch her antics. He was also shocked to discover the school’s owners knew of her behaviour but did not dare sack her: ‘We used to do that ten years ago … Not now. We can’t afford to lose a maid.’ With this clash between his concerns for the cricket pitch and the school’s desire not to lose a maid, Roberts left the job. Asking his father to help him find another position, he was told he might get a position in the office of a friend, which was: ‘full of conscientious objectors, physical wrecks and mental cases. You’d fit in well there’.
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In south London, self-confessed street urchin Fred Rowe was one of the local boys who noticed that American soldiers reaped the rewards of their relative wealth. His elder sister had a number of American boyfriends and he enjoyed their visits, especially when they handed out sweets and chocolate or took him for rides in their cars. He also enjoyed the presence of the Americans for other reasons:

Hoping to deal with the spread of venereal disease, in 1943 the American military authorities requested that efforts should be made to clear prostitutes from around hostels operated by the US Red Cross in London and also to keep the main thoroughfares of the city clear. As the Americans pointed out, they were not concerned with the morality of the British girls: they just wanted to keep their soldiers fit and healthy. Whilst officials at the Foreign Office understood the American argument, acknowledging: ‘disgust that these women should be allowed to swarm round the American Red Cross hostels,’
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there was little they could do. Quite simply, British law would not allow for clearing the streets since there were plenty of females with a legitimate reason to wait outside the hostels. As Superintendent Cole of the Metropolitan Police later noted:

What the British were able to offer was an explanation of the reasons behind the proliferation of part-time prostitutions: ‘war time relaxation of parental control and the appearance of girls who, after their day’s work in munitions factories etc, were anxious to have a good time’.
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Even if the British had been able to take action, clearing the streets was only the beginning of the problem. Quite simply, the American servicemen were eager for sex, with the military authorities estimating that 70 per cent of their troops were open to advances from prostitutes. As they admitted, the soldiers were often ‘young inexperienced men who had probably never spent very much time in a large city and it was natural that they would form an easy prey for the less desirable characters in London’.
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As had already been noted by the Canadian military, prostitutes were not the principal source of infection of VD for their soldiers, suggesting that the source of infection were the
‘good-time girls’. The Metropolitan Police agreed, noting that common prostitutes ‘took precautions in their own interests’
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unlike the teenage girls whose ignorance and irresponsibility spread infection.

Another reason that the police struggled to prevent prostitutes offering their wares was that, as newcomers to the industry, they didn’t work the traditional pick-up grounds. The servicemen had little need to solicit the services of girls who openly walked on the streets. Instead: ‘All the troops had to do was to go to a Public House, Café, Club, or suchlike place where servicemen congregated, and there find women for whom they bought drinks and then accompanied them home.’
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It was not just prostitution that saw a change in wartime morality. Ordinary girls were influenced by what they had experienced and adapted their lives accordingly. The ‘live for today’ mentality resulted in a degree of promiscuity that had a direct impact upon young lives. As one teenage veteran of the Blitz recalled when asked: