War bride is a term used in reference to foreign women who married military personnel in times of war or during their military occupations of foreign countries, especially-but not exclusively-during World War I and World War II. One unusual variant was the telegram war bride; and the first United States couple to do so on March 17, 1942 was the marriage of Ida West and Army Air Corps Capt. Francis Newton Culler, both of South Carolina.
One of the largest and best documented war bride phenomena is American servicemen marrying German "Fräuleins" after World War II. By 1949, over 20,000 German war brides had emigrated to the United States. Furthermore, it is estimated that there are "... 15,000 Australian women who married American servicemen based in Australia during World War II and moved to the US to be with their husbands". Allied servicemen also married many women in other countries where they were stationed at the end of the war, including France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Philippines and Japan. This also occurred in Korea and Vietnam with the later wars in those countries involving U.S. troops and other anti-communist soldiers. As many as 70,000 GI war brides left the United Kingdom, 150,000 to 200,000 hailed from continental Europe, 15,500 from Australia and 1,500 from New Zealand, between the years 1942 and 1952.
In 2008 the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, B.C., Canada, had as its major exhibit paintings by Calgary artist Bev Tosh. The exhibit chronicled the war bride experience in Canada and New Zealand via a painting medium.
Video War bride
Philippine-American War
Due to the Philippine Insurrection, a few U.S. servicemen would take Filipinas as their wives, with documentation as early as 1902 of one immigrating with their servicemember husband to the UK. These Filipinas were already U.S. nationals, when immigrating to the United States, making their legal status significantly different from previous Asian immigrants to the US.
Maps War bride
War brides in World War II
United States
During and immediately after World War II, more than 60,000 U.S. servicemen married women overseas and they were promised that their wives and children would receive free passage to the U.S. The U.S. Army's "Operation War Bride", which eventually transported an estimated 70,000 women and children, began in Britain in early 1946. The press dubbed it "Operation Diaper Run". The first batch of war brides (452 British women and their 173 children and one Bridegroom) left Southampton harbor on SS Argentina on January 26, 1946 and arrived in the U.S. on February 4, 1946. Over the years, an estimated 300,000 foreign war brides moved to the United States following the passage of the War Brides Act of 1945 and its subsequent amendments, of which 51,747 were Filipinos and an estimated 50,000 were Japanese.
Robyn Arrowsmith, a historian who spent nine years researching Australia's war brides, said between 12,000 and 15,000 Australian women had married visiting U.S. servicemen and moved to the U.S. with their husbands. Significantly, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Newfoundland women married American servicemen during the time of Ernest Harmon Air Force Base's existence (1941-1966), in which tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen arrived to defend the island and North America from Nazi Germany during World War II and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Many of these war brides settled in the U.S. so much that in 1966 the Newfoundland government created a tourism campaign specifically for them and their families to revisit.
Great Britain
There were two types of British war brides during WW2, one was from occupying forces in France and Germany, and the other from Royal Navy seamen in America and Australia. British personnel were proportionately the most successful with foreign women and girls, and were popular with local girls than American servicemen when the Royal Navy would dock in US ports during the war. British war brides coming from Australia were more significant for a very key reason, some came on HMS Victorious and were the only war brides ever transported on a military vessel. The youngest war bride on Victorious was just 15 years old an estimated 2,000 British war brides came from Australia after marrying British Royal Navy personnel of the Pacific Fleet. Royal Navy personnel who met American girls while in America also brought home war brides, the total number of how many came to England after the war is unknown, after various dances and other interactions at US ports and cities while British servicemen were on leave fraternisation was common between the two.
Between 1945 and 1948 over 10,000 German and Austrian women married British servicemen. Thousands more illegitimate children were born to German mothers and British fathers too during this time.
Australia
About 650 Japanese war brides migrated to Australia after the ban on Japanese migration, imposed at the outbreak of the Pacific War, was lifted in 1952 when the San Francisco Peace Treaty came into force. They had married Australian soldiers involved in the occupation of Japan.
Canada
47,783 British war brides arrived in Canada accompanied by some 21,950 children. Since 1939, most Canadian soldiers were stationed in Britain. As such, about 94% of all war brides arriving in Canada were British. 3,000 war brides came from the Netherlands, Belgium, Newfoundland and France. The first marriage between a Canadian serviceman and a British bride was registered at Farnborough Church in the Aldershot area in December 1939, just 43 days after the first Canadian soldiers arrived. Many of these war brides emigrated to Canada, beginning in 1944 and peaking in 1946. A special Canadian agency, the Canadian Wives' Bureau was set up by the Canadian Department of Defence to arrange transport and assist war brides in the transition to Canadian life. The majority of Canadian war brides landed at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, most commonly on the following troop and hospital ships: Queen Mary, Lady Nelson, Letitia, Mauretania, and Île de France.
The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 has exhibits and collections dedicated to war brides. There is a National Historic Site marker located at Pier 21, as well.
Italy
During the campaign of 1943-1945, there were more than 10,000 marriages between Italian girls and American soldiers.
From relationship between Italian women and African-American soldiers, have born the "mulattini": many of these children were abandoned in orphanages, because at the time the interracial marriage in the United States was not possible in many states.
Japan
Several thousand Japanese who were sent as colonizers to Manchukuo and Inner Mongolia were left behind in China. The majority of Japanese left behind in China were women, and these Japanese women mostly married Chinese men and became known as "stranded war wives" (zanryu fujin). Because they had children fathered by Chinese men, the Japanese women were not allowed to bring their Chinese families back with them to Japan so most of them stayed. Japanese law only allowed children fathered by Japanese fathers to become Japanese citizens. However, recently Japan lifted the restrictions on the women and citizenship for children born to foreign men and they have been migrating back to Japan with their Chinese husbands and children.
Korean War
6,423 Korean women married U.S. military personnel as war brides during and immediately after the Korean War.
Vietnam War
8,040 Vietnamese women came to the United States as war brides between 1964 and 1975.
2003 Iraq War
War brides from wars subsequent to Vietnam became less common due to differences in religion and culture, shorter durations of wars, and direct orders. As of 2006, about 1,500 visa requests had been made by U.S. military personnel for Iraqi spouses and fiancées. There have been several well-publicized cases of American soldiers marrying Iraqi women.
Notes
References
- Lonnie D. Story. The Meeting of Anni Adams: The Butterfly of Luxembourg. ISBN 1932124268.
- Carol Fallows. Love & War: stories of war brides from the Great War to Vietnam. ISBN 1863252673.
- Keiko Tamura. "Michi's memories: the story of a Japanese war bride". ISBN 1740760018.
See also
- War Brides Act
- Eswyn Lyster - Most Excellent Citizens, Trafford Press 2010
- War children
- GI Brides - a narrative non-fiction book about British war brides of World War II
- War Brides, - 1916 silent film by Herbert Brenon and starring Alla Nazimova
- I Was a Male War Bride, Screwball comedy film featuring Cary Grant as a male war bride.
- Japanese War Bride - 1952 Film by King Vidor featuring Shirley Yamaguchi and Don Taylor.
- Madame Butterfly - a 1904 opera by Giacomo Puccini about a Japanese child bride who is abandoned by her husband, a US Navy lieutenant
External links
- "American War Bride Experience; Fact, Stories about American War Brides"; American War World II GI Brides. website
- Luxembourg War Brides; "The Meeting of Anni Adams: The Butterfly of Luxembourg"; American War Brides. website
- Australian War Brides website
- Canadian War Brides of WW II website
- Newfoundland & Labrador War Brides website
- Canadian War Brides from Veterans' Affairs Canada website
- CBC Digital Archives - Love and War: Canadian War Brides
- Yankee boys, Kiwi girls history webpage
- Marriages from Problems of the 2NZEF (eText of Official History of New Zealand in WW II)
- New Zealand servicemen and their war brides, 1946 (photo)
- Eswyn Lyster's Canadian War Bride page - the book "Most Excellent Citizens"
- War brides of World War II reunion 2007
- Canadian War Brides of the First World War website
Source of article : Wikipedia
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