GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love (16 page)

As impromptu street parties began to spring up all over Britain, Lyn and Ben were snuggled up together in the cinema, totally unaware of the excitement that was fast spreading around the country. They were watching
A Song to Remember
, the story of the nineteenth-century composer Frédéric Chopin and his lover George Sand.

Suddenly the lights went up, the door flew open and the cinema manager came running breathlessly down the aisle. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the war is over!' he announced.

The audience burst into a spontaneous round of applause. But even on such a momentous occasion most people decided to stay until the end of the film.

Afterwards, however, it was time to celebrate. The Polygon Hotel was marking the occasion in the way it knew best – with a dance – and Lyn wasn't going to miss out on the biggest ball of the year. When they arrived the hotel was swarming with people, and for once elegance went out of the window as elated American officers drank themselves silly, jitterbugging with abandon. Bottles of beer were shaken vigorously and sprayed around like champagne. ‘My mother's going to kill me if I go home smelling of beer!' cried Lyn, as the pretty dress she was wearing got soaked.

The mention of Mrs Rowe reminded Ben that Lyn's curfew was 10 p.m., even if the war was over. As they walked home she couldn't stop humming the Chopin polonaise from the movie, which now seemed to sum up the victorious sentiment of the night. Ben was always the more reserved of the two, but now he was quieter than ever. Unlike Lyn, he was thinking beyond the current celebrations and worrying what the end of the war in Europe might mean for them.

As they neared their usual bench in Watts Park, he suggested they sit for a moment. ‘What's wrong?' asked Lyn. ‘Aren't you pleased the war's over?'

‘Lyn,' he said quietly, ‘I want you to come to California.'

‘What do you mean?' she asked, still so elated that she wasn't really concentrating.

‘I mean,' he said, ‘will you marry me?'

Lyn couldn't believe what a wonderful night it was turning out to be – first the war had ended and now the man she loved had proposed to her. ‘Yes, please!' she said, and Ben scooped her into his arms and gave an uncharacteristic ‘Whoop!'

Ben would have to ask her parents' permission before any engagement was confirmed, so Lyn couldn't mention her news to her family. But she was more than happy to run up to bed and clutch her happy secret to her chest in solitude. As she lay down to sleep she had visions of herself in an exquisite long, white wedding dress. She played the scene through in her head – the perfect gown, the crowds of admiring onlookers, the wedding banquet, the romantic honeymoon.

Then she suddenly wondered what came next. She remembered with a jolt what Ben had said just before he had asked her to marry him: ‘I want you to come to California.' She had been so carried away that she had completely forgotten that part.

Lyn was always one for adventure, and as a child she had longed to join the rich passengers who used to leave Southampton on the liners heading for exotic places. But the passengers had always come home again afterwards.

Instead of spending the night dreaming of her white wedding, Lyn was soon tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

In the morning, she ran to the corner shop and used their phone to call Ben at the Polygon. At the first sound of his voice she blurted out: ‘I don't think I can do this!'

‘Lyn,' Ben said, sounding confused, ‘what are you talking about?'

‘I don't think I can marry you,' she said, a lump forming in her throat.

‘Why?'

‘I just don't think I can go that far away from home,' she said. ‘What if I don't like it there? What if things go wrong? What if you can't find a job?'

‘Don't worry,' he interrupted. ‘We'll do the best we can.'

‘But if things didn't work out,' she insisted, ‘would we come back to England?'

‘Lyn,' he said gently, ‘I can't promise you that.'

It wasn't what she wanted to hear, but it was a reminder of his honesty.

‘Look, will you come here and meet me for tea?' Ben asked.

‘Okay,' Lyn agreed.

‘I love you, chowhound.'

Lyn laughed, despite the tears forming. ‘I love you too.'

When she arrived at the hotel, Ben was already waiting for her. He jumped out of his chair and hugged her tight. ‘I'm so glad you came,' he said. He looked like he hadn't had a good night's sleep either. While everyone else had been celebrating the night before, some of the black GIs had been busy setting fire to taxi cabs and committing other acts of vandalism around Southampton. Ben knew they were furious at having to go back to America, to be treated as second-class citizens once again as if, despite the war, nothing had really changed. In a way, he couldn't blame them.

Ben got Lyn a cup of tea and sat back down again. ‘Guess what?' he said.

‘What?' Lyn asked hopefully. Maybe Ben had decided they could live in England after all.

‘I got orders,' he said. ‘I'm being shipped out soon.'

‘Where are you going?' asked Lyn, looking up in panic.

‘They won't tell us, but probably Japan.'

It was the word she had been hoping he wouldn't say. The war with Germany might be over, but the Japanese had still not surrendered, and while people were celebrating all over Europe the Americans were still embroiled in the increasingly bloody Battle of Okinawa. Many US ships had already been destroyed by kamikaze pilots, and thousands of men had been lost.

Ben reached for her hand. ‘I don't want to leave without being married to you,' he said.

Lyn felt utterly overwhelmed. Now she had to consider not only the prospect of moving to another continent, but the fact that Ben was about to be sent to the most dangerous place on earth, and that she might never see him again.

‘Please don't think I'm rude, but I have to go,' she said. ‘I need to go home and think about everything.'

All day Lyn struggled with herself. She was devastated at the thought of Ben leaving the country, and of not knowing when they would see each other again. But she didn't want to rush into a marriage that might commit her to a lifetime away from everyone and everything she knew and loved.

Another sleepless night passed for Lyn, and when she woke in the morning she knew she had to make up her mind. The worst thing would be if Ben was suddenly taken away from her, before they had a chance to resolve things.

Back she went to the telephone at the corner shop. ‘I've made up my mind,' she told him.

‘Which way?' he asked anxiously.

‘I think . . .' Lyn paused, knowing that what she said next would change the course of her life forever. ‘I think I want to marry you.'

Ben let out an enormous sigh of relief. ‘That's pretty good news!' he said. She could hear he was choked, and it revealed the torture he had gone through waiting for her reply. But now that she had given it, she felt no regret. Her heart had always told her she should be with Ben, and once she had stopped listening to her fears, she had been able to hear it.

Once Ben had got a yes out of Lyn for the second time, he wasn't going to risk another change of heart, so he came straight round to Padwell Road to speak to her parents. Mr and Mrs Rowe were upstairs in their bedroom. ‘Maybe we shouldn't bother them now,' she said.

‘No!' said Ben, unusually insistent. He took her hand and led her upstairs, holding onto the handrail to steady his nerves.

As soon as Mr and Mrs Rowe saw them in the doorway, they knew instantly why they were there.

‘May I have Gwen's hand in marriage?' Ben asked, careful to use the name that Lyn's parents knew her by.

‘Will you be staying here in England?' asked Mrs Rowe.

‘No, ma'am,' said Ben. ‘We'll be going to California.'

Mrs Rowe nodded. It was the answer she had feared, but like her daughter she appreciated Ben's honesty.

‘Well, Ben,' said Lyn's father, ‘if it was anyone else but you, we would say no. But we know you'll take good care of Gwen.'

The long wait for the marriage application to be processed began. Since Ben's CO, Shady Lane, was fond of the couple, he did his best to move things along as swiftly as possible, but knowing her fiancé could be sent to Japan at any moment made the days go by agonisingly slowly for Lyn.

Even after the fall of Okinawa, the Japanese stubbornly refused to capitulate, determined to fight to the last man standing and take as many Americans as possible down with them. Then, on 6 August, everything changed. An atom bomb, the product of many years of top-secret planning, devastated the city of Hiroshima. Three days later, Nagasaki was flattened. The following week, Japan offered an unconditional surrender.

On 14 August 1945, the end of the war was announced by the new Prime Minister, Clement Atlee, on the BBC's midnight bulletin. Church bells began ringing all around the country, bonfires were lit and revellers partied in the streets. In London, people leaped into the fountains of Trafalgar Square and fireworks filled the sky. In Paris, a conga line of GIs spontaneously snaked from the Red Cross club to the Place de l'Opéra and back. In Times Square, a sailor embraced a woman in an impromptu kiss that would come to transfix the world.

But for Lyn, lying awake in bed in Southampton, there was one thing that mattered most about the good news: Ben was safe from being sent to Japan.

Although the war he had come to fight was now over, Ben was told he would be required to stay on in Southampton at least until Christmas. Lyn was relieved – now that the Army had finally given permission for them to marry, it would give her time to plan that dream wedding she had fantasised about.

But she found that it wasn't going to be easy, even in peacetime. Rationing was still tight, and there simply wouldn't be enough food for a large group of people. Apart from a couple of co-workers, it would just be her mum and dad, and her siblings Bunty and Ron, if they could get leave from the forces. Some wedding banquet, Lyn thought.

Then there was the dress – or rather, the lack of it. Wedding dresses were almost impossible to get hold of, and many a wartime bride got married in a borrowed or rented dress – an option that Lyn flatly refused. A friend of the family offered her a dress made out of reclaimed parachute silk, but knowing that the material was often salvaged from German pilots who had been shot down, she couldn't bring herself to take it. In the end, with some donated ration coupons, she bought a knee-length blue dress. She borrowed a hat from a girl at work, and thankfully Ben's mother sent her a pair of nylon stockings with seams, so at least she wouldn't have to draw lines down the backs of her legs on her wedding day.

Soon Mrs Patrino was being called on to save the day again, as it had proved impossible to find gold wedding bands, let alone an engagement ring, in a town where many shops had been bombed out. Ben sent his mother the money and she picked out a beautiful wedding set – a diamond engagement ring and two gold bands – which she put in the post to her son.

Lyn waited patiently for the parcel to arrive. She couldn't wait to show off her engagement ring to the girls at work. But as the weeks went by there was no sign of it.

The rings were making their own little odyssey. First, they were returned to sender, since Ben was listed incorrectly as having been sent to Japan. Then his mother tried sending them again, and they mistakenly arrived in Cardiff, but the Army would not allow Ben to go and get them, so back they went again across the Atlantic.

‘Has this fella of yours really got you a ring, or do you think he's just making it up?' asked one of the girls at work.

‘You sure you know what you're doing, going to California with an Italian-American?' demanded another, meaningfully.

‘Yes, I do,' snapped Lyn. ‘He's a good man and I trust him.'

Lyn found herself increasingly spending time with girls who, like her, were dating GIs, rather than with her old friends from work. In particular, she became friendly with a girl called Jean, who was marrying another of the 14th Port officers. Lyn didn't like the term ‘GI bride' – she felt many in Britain looked down on girls who they assumed were marrying for a ticket to prosperity. But she was beginning to feel that she and others like her had better club together.

Lyn's boss solved the problem of the wedding bands at least, with a couple of pot-metal rings that he had managed to acquire on the black market.

Meanwhile, since Ben was Italian-American, the wedding would have to be in a Catholic church. The priest at nearby St Edmund's agreed to marry them, but to Lyn's annoyance he would only do so if she pledged to bring up her future children as Catholic.

‘I'll agree to marry you in the Catholic church,' Lyn told Ben, ‘on the condition that we can have a fireworks display afterwards.'

‘But how can we manage that?' Ben asked anxiously.

‘Oh, I'll write to the King and Queen and say that I want fireworks on my wedding day,' she told him. The following morning, she went and booked the ceremony for 5 November. It had been six long years since the British had been able to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, but this year fireworks would be permitted once again. If Lyn's wedding was not going to be what she had dreamed of, she would at least make sure it went off with a bang.

When the long-awaited day finally came, Lyn woke to the sound of children calling out ‘Penny for the Guy!' as they carted their stuffed Guy Fawkes dummies down the street, many of which sported Hitler moustaches. She realised with a pang that this was the last time she would get to celebrate the British tradition.

Downstairs, Mrs Rowe was putting the finishing touches to the spread she was preparing, if it could be called that. She had done her best, given the limited means.