GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love (14 page)

Rae understood her mother's anxiety, but she found it hard staying put in England while her husband was in France. Since Raymond's hospital unit had arrived in Cherbourg, Rae had heard from him only occasionally, and she was gripped by any news she could get hold of about how the war was going. She kept as busy as she could with her work, but dark thoughts and worries never went away completely.

The Normandy landings had been only the start of the American war on the Continent. In September 1944, tens of thousands of Allied airborne troops dropped into Holland as part of Operation Market Garden, which aimed to end the war before Christmas by capturing bridges on the border with Germany. It was the first major defeat for the Allies since D-Day, and proved that victory over Germany wouldn't be easy.

Even greater American losses occurred three months later at the Battle of the Bulge – the final German offensive of the war. During six weeks of bitter fighting in freezing conditions the Americans lost 19,000 men, their worst death count in the entire war.

Rae's husband Raymond was sent to the ‘Bulge' – named for the shape the Germans had created in the American line – along with some medics from his hospital in Cherbourg. She was shocked to read in his letters how, short of reinforcements, the Army had given him and the other cooks rifles and sent them up to the front lines.

The Allies' eventual success at the Battle of the Bulge was decisive, and a German victory now seemed all but impossible. But with GIs continuing to die every day, the waiting didn't get any easier.

Meanwhile, Londoners were still suffering the ‘flying bomb war'. One V-2 rocket fell close to Rae's family home in Neasden, ripping a corner off the local school and reducing several houses to rubble. Her sister Mary rushed to join the neighbours in the search for survivors, with one local resident foremost in her mind – her friend Lil, whose house had been opposite the school.

Mary found Lil's mum, who told her Lil was missing, and together they began searching the rubble, calling out her name at the tops of their lungs. Finally, they received a response from beneath a huge mound of fallen masonry. ‘I'm all right, Mum,' came Lil's muffled reply. Furiously they raced to pull away the piles of bricks and rubble, until the voice grew clearer and more distinct. ‘I'm all right, Mum, I'm all right,' Lil kept calling. But when they finally got her out, she died in her mother's arms.

There was no time for Mary to stop and mourn her friend, however – other people were still desperately searching for their loved ones and needed help. One family had been looking for their eighteen-month-old baby for hours, but the child seemed to have completely disappeared. Every so often, they would stop and listen quietly for the faintest hint of crying, but they heard nothing. Mary joined in the search, but however many bricks they turned up and however hard they looked, there was no sign of the child.

Towards dawn, Mary happened to look up from the rubble, and saw a sight overhead that would haunt her for the rest of her life. There, in the branches of a tree, was the little baby, hanging by its nightgown, limp and silent.

Something in Mary changed at that moment. The next morning she went along to the local recruiting office and volunteered for the ATS, just as her sister had done before her.

While Rae was proud of the decision that Mary had taken, she felt more and more worried about their mother. First Mrs Burton's husband had left her for a woman half her age and now she was all alone, in a city where bombs continued to fall. Reading her mum's letters at her billet in Chilwell, Rae was alarmed. They were fearful and bleak, but frustratingly there was little Rae could do since her leave had been cut to a five-mile radius.

Eventually, Rae decided to risk the consequences and go AWOL. There was nothing she could do to help her husband serving on the Continent, but she could at least give her mum some support down in London. One Friday after work, she hopped on a train at Nottingham station, keeping an eye out for any military police who might ask awkward questions, and turned up in Neasden unannounced.

Her mother was delighted to see her, but asked immediately, ‘When do you have to go back?'

Rae hugged her tightly. ‘Not for a couple of days, Mum,' she told her, not mentioning the fact that she wasn't supposed to be there at all.

Rae found that in some ways she needed the visit as much as her mum did. She had been lonely up in Chilwell ever since Raymond had left for Europe, and it felt good to be with family again. Her presence seemed to lift Mrs Burton's spirits too, and by Sunday evening they were both feeling better.

On Monday morning, Rae got up early to pack her things. Her mother had already left for her shift at the factory where she worked, a mile or so up the road, and Rae was planning to drop in and say goodbye to her on her way to the station. As she packed her bag, she heard a chugging noise coming from outside and looked out of the window. There in the distance was the menacing outline of a doodlebug passing over houses opposite. Then suddenly the noise stopped. Rae knew what that meant – the flying bomb was about to fall.

She ran away from the window and down the stairs. Halfway down the staircase to the landing, Rae heard the explosion of the doodlebug outside. The shock made her stumble and she fell down the rest of the steps, scraping the skin off her knees and hitting the side of her face against the wall at the bottom.

Dazed, she scrambled to stand up again, the noise of the bomb still echoing in her ears, and ran back up to the front bedroom to inspect the damage. Remarkably the windows had not been shattered, but the street outside was a scene of mayhem as people ran about in panic.

Rae took her bag and went downstairs and into the street. There were wardens dashing past in the direction of the bombsite round the corner in Dog Lane, and Rae could see smoke rising into the sky.

She rushed up to the North Circular Road and headed for the shelter opposite her mum's factory, sure that she would find her there.

When she arrived, Mrs Burton was already inside. ‘Thank God you're all right!' she cried. ‘I was worried about you.'

She saw Rae's grazed legs and sore eye. ‘What happened?'

‘Oh, nothing, I just fell over,' said Rae. She had been so preoccupied that it wasn't until now that she felt the pain from the fall.

The inhabitants of the shelter waited patiently for the all-clear signal – a green flag flown by a spotter on the roof of a building opposite – and then began to pour into the factory yard. It was a working day and they were expected back at their production lines.

But just as the last of them were leaving the shelter, the man on the roof dropped his green flag and put up a yellow one, indicating that another doodlebug was on its way. The men and women turned and began to file back in again. Then the yellow flag was replaced with a red one, signalling imminent danger.

The bodies pushing and shoving began to grow more frantic. ‘Come on, hurry up!' someone shouted, ‘There's a bomb about to fall out here!' Rae felt herself being shoved this way and that, and she and her mother were separated from one another. ‘Mum!' she shouted, and saw Mrs Burton looking around for her. Then in the confusion, Mrs Burton lost her footing and Rae saw her fall over. The woman behind her tripped over her and also fell to the floor, and as the people behind them carried on surging forward, both of them began to be trampled on. Rae heard her mother screaming frantically.

‘Stop!' Rae shouted. ‘My mum's under there!' She pushed and shoved her way towards her, elbowing people out of the way. A warden got there first and hauled Mrs Burton up by the back of her dress, which was dirty with footprints. She had always taught her children not to swear, but at that moment she emitted the most ear-aching string of expletives Rae had ever heard.

She was silenced by the sound of the doodlebug exploding outside.

Everyone held their breath for a moment, until they realised they were safe. The bomb had fallen nearby, but not close enough to do them any damage. Ray hugged her mother tightly, shaken by the ordeal.

‘Well, at least it didn't hit us, that's the main thing,' Mrs Burton said. Rae could feel her trembling.

Once the green flag went up again, everyone filed out of the shelter. Rae felt terrible leaving her mother, but she knew she had to get back before anyone noticed she had gone AWOL.

‘I'm really sorry, but I've got to go now, Mum,' she said.

‘All right, love,' her mother said sadly. She squeezed her hand, and Rae watched her head back into the factory.

As Rae sat on the train back to Nottingham, troubled by the morning's events and now sporting a black eye from her fall, she felt far from reassured about her mother's wellbeing.

Fortunately, the threat from the skies was only temporary, and as the advancing Allied armies in Europe overran the V-1 and V-2 launch sites, the flying bomb war came to an end. It was only a matter of time until the ground war followed suit.

But for Rae, waiting it out from the relative safety of Nottingham, the suspense was unbearable. Her mind kept fixating on one question: who will be the last man to die? Day by day, the Allied forces in Europe grew closer to Berlin, but still the Germans were putting up resistance, and still British and American men were being killed. Rae felt like she wanted to scream, ‘Get it over with!'

One day, some of the other ATS girls were surprised to find her sitting on her bunk, sobbing her heart out. Rae wasn't normally one for tears, but the suspense had proved too much for her.

‘What's happened?' they asked, worried that she had received some bad news.

‘Nothing,' she replied. ‘I just don't think I can take any more of this.'

On 12 April 1945 President Roosevelt died suddenly of a stroke, and at the Washington Club, where Sylvia volunteered, the Stars and Stripes flew at half-mast. But even this tragedy couldn't dent the belief among the Americans and their allies that victory was now within reach. The Germans were fighting a defensive war, falling further and further back within their own country as the Americans and Russians moved in. A more positive mood pervaded all over London.

Sylvia was feeling more like her old self again. She still thought of Carl Russell now and then, and worried about Wally, Frank, Tom and all the others in her own personal pen-pal club. But as she collected the plates and glasses at the Red Cross club, she sang along to the jukebox at the top of her voice.

One evening, Sylvia had just come out of the kitchen with a cloth to wipe down the tables when Issy Bonn's ‘There! I've Said It Again' came on. Since it was an English song, she really belted out the number, causing a young GI sitting with his back to her reading the paper to turn around in surprise. ‘Holy smokes, you really have a voice!' he remarked.

Sylvia stopped singing, instantly self-conscious.

‘Do you always sing like that?' he asked.

‘Oh, well, when the jukebox is on I usually sing along,' she said shyly.

‘What's your name? And what are you doing here?' he asked her, putting down his paper.

‘My name's Sylvia,' she replied. ‘I work at the Piccadilly Hotel and I just come down here after work to volunteer.'

‘Well, Sylvia, my name's Bob. And I think you could really go somewhere with that voice,' he said. There was a twinkle in his hazel eyes that made her giggle involuntarily.

The man stuck around until Sylvia returned to the kitchen to start washing the dishes, and then he stood up to go. She glanced over as he was leaving and saw him put his hat on at a jaunty angle over his dark, wavy hair, which gave him an impish air. He cast her a last look and then he was gone.

Three days later, Sylvia was chatting away with Peggy at the Piccadilly Hotel when their manageress marched in and told her there was a call for her.

‘For me?' she asked. She didn't know anyone back in Woolwich who owned a phone.

Sylvia followed Miss Frank to the phone, took the receiver and hesitantly said, ‘Hello?'

‘Hello, Sylvia!' a cheerful man's voice replied.

‘Who is this?' Sylvia asked.

‘It's Bob. Don't you remember? I said I liked your voice at the Red Cross club.'

The image of the dark-haired young man with the twinkle in his eye popped into Sylvia's head.

‘I'm coming to meet you after work today and we're going for tea,' he continued. ‘Meet me in front of the hotel. Bye!'

The line went dead, and Sylvia looked up to see the annoyed face of Miss Frank, who had been listening to every word.

‘Sylvia, personal calls aren't allowed in the office!' she reprimanded her.

‘Sorry, Miss,' Sylvia faltered, ‘I didn't even give him the number.'

Miss Frank looked unconvinced, and Sylvia scurried back to her desk.

Sylvia clocked out at 5.30 p.m. that day as usual, and found Bob waiting outside the Piccadilly's grand entrance, his hat cocked impishly to one side as before. As soon as she saw him her heart beat a little faster, and she was surprised to find she had butterflies in her stomach.