THE AMERICANS IN MOURNE

This story was gathered, written and submitted to the peoples war by Edel Quinn

Kilkeel, while my mother was raised in Banbridge, and even though they were very young at the time of World War Two they both have lots of stories to tell from their
A memory that sticks out in my father’s mind are the American GI’s who were based in ‘Mourne Park’ outside Kilkeel. He recalls:
“I must have been about six or seven at the time but I can still remember clearly, my younger sister Mary and I were walking to the village shop to sell the eggs when we were met by two American soldiers. We had no idea really who they were I had just heard talk of them by my parents. One of the soldiers approached me and asked could he buy the eggs. I wasn’t sure what to do but I soon changed my mind when he offered me a pound. A pound! I couldn’t believe it, there were only 11 eggs in the basket and the shopkeeper would only have paid thirty pence for them. I gave them basket and all. My sister Mary wanted to go to the shop and spend it but I wouldn’t let her. I wanted to get home and show my mother how much the Americans had paid for the eggs My parents were born in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. My father grew up in and how much money I had got for the family.”
The Americans caused quite a stir, especially with the local girls. The GI’s had a lot of girlfriends and this became a bit of a joke in the area. This was illustrated at a local couple’s wedding in the town, when a poster on the back of the wedding car read, ‘The Yanks didn’t get this one’. At night the American’s would camp out in the hills and fields surrounding my fathers home and then creep down at night and sleep in the haystacks. My grandfather was not amused in the morning when he found the GI’s had knocked the haystacks down.“The Americans were always very well mannered and the people round here liked them. It was common for them to come down from were they were camping and ask my mother to make them some food. They would always pay or give sweets or tins of food in exchange, so people were happy to show them hospitality.” He reminisces. My mother was born in 1944 but she still has stories her mother told her. One story that stuck in her mind was how the Americans would come to their home and ask for food. “It was usual for this to happen, they would come to the door and ask for some breakfast or dinner. My mother told me how one day after making two American GI’s some dinner that they handed her two tins of fruit and nylon stockings. My mother was thrilled. No one could get luxuries like fruit or nylons, they were like gold dust”, my mother remembered.

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