About the contributor

The Friendly Invasion

1942

We heard they were coming, had seen photographs in the newspapers of them up in the northern towns, but were not prepared for the ‘Friendly Invasion’. It came as quite a shock!

My girlfriend Paddy Keeble and I worked together in Ipswich on essential work making uniforms and stayed the weekdays at my home and at weekends we mostly cycled to her home at Ringshall close to Wattisham airfield.

One sunny summer morning, we decided to wear our shorts and blouses and go for a leisurely stroll through the village. It wasn’t long before we saw a long convoy of army trucks, going towards the airbase. So we took a closer look and found the trucks were full of American soldiers who waved and called out. We were well-built 15 year olds and the American boys were calling out all sorts of things and asking for dates.

We were at Ringshall corner where old ‘Hally’ lived. He was a wily old fox, always ready to make money. In his time he had owned a horse and flat cart and had been a fishmonger and carter and with his wife, was now running the post office and general store. The boys were throwing money at us and old Hally was running and picking it up!!

It wasn’t long before the GIs had free time and they were allocated cycles so, in their off duty hours, they explored the countryside. We met two on a lovely summer evening and they asked if we would go for a cycle ride with them. We started off and sometime later were going down a hill in a narrow country lane, while the Lightning planes were whirling overhead practicing for combat and one of the GIs took his feet off the pedals as he raced down the hill singing, “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy”. Us girls were quite shy at the time but we had a good laugh over that. Later that song became very popular over here.

At the time the Americans arrived, there were very few British men not in the forces; only men too young to be called up for active service or those who were unfit or elderly. Quite a lot were in reserved occupations so were not called up. The difference in the British and American uniforms caused a lot of jealousy among the servicemen. The American uniforms were smart and made of a suiting material but the British uniforms were a coarse Melton type cloth and would never look as smart as the Americans.

We found that the American boys were always glad to talk to someone who had nothing to do with the army. Knowing they were going to war, they got as much fun out of life as they could. Many local residents invited them into their homes and took them into their hearts. Many firm friendships were established with the Americans inviting the British to their homes after the war.

They were always very polite to the older generation, calling ladies “ma’am” and the men were mostly called “pop”.

For ourselves, we either had to walk or cycle to get anywhere. We were on our way to Ringshall one day on our bikes and at the bottom of Barking hill an American truck came along. They called out for us to hang on and we caught hold of the truck and were pulled up the hill. When they increased their speed at the top of the hill, we let go amidst lots of laughter.

We were talking to two GIs close to my friend Paddy’s home and one had a button drop off his jacket. Paddy invited him indoors saying that her mum would sew it on and that was the start of a ‘nice little earner’. Wages were very low and Paddy’s mother was pleased with the jobs she got. It was not unusual to see American uniforms hanging up in the cottage. They wanted their stripes and patches sewn on and mostly wanted their shirts tapered in. I suppose they had lost weight when they were training and were proud of their physique. Very few were overweight, unlike now-a-days.

We were invited to many dances, after getting to know the men. They knew Paddy’s dad who had to go to the camp daily, to bring away the waste food for the farmers’ pigs. The GIs would often send messages to us to say there was a dance on Saturday and just to say we knew the cookhouse boys and we’d get in — it was as simple as that. If it was a special dance they made huge Angel cakes about 3’ long and 2’ wide. These were lovely and usually had the group’s number iced on the top.

Each base managed to make up a band. Some were quite large and they played all the latest songs including many of Glenn Miller’s. At Christmas time it was beautiful — a choir came in carrying candles, the lights were dimmed and they sang Christmas carols. At the end of the evening the band struck up with ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ and it didn’t matter how inebriated the GIs were, they immediately stood to attention and saluted, thinking of the country they loved.

We still say we get goose bumps whenever we hear that played. Living so close to the base, we could hear the intercom and when we heard “NOW HEAR THIS”, knew there was an alert and the men were confined to the base. Ten minutes later, some GIs we knew came cycling along and we said we’d heard the alert so how did they get out. They said there was a hole in the hedge! They never came by the main road but out through Carters Lane where there was little traffic. When we asked weren’t they afraid their officers would come along, they said “Hek no, they are back at base drinking their Bourbon” and these were Military Police not taking life too seriously.

Two of them told us that when we came over next weekend, they would bring out their guns and we’d go shooting Rooks in the woods. When the day came, they came cycling along with their large rifles tied to their crossbars with string. We were walking with them but that was slow progress so we joined the rifles on the crossbar and got there much quicker. When we arrived they gave us instructions on how to shoot but neither of us wanted to hit any birds. I held this huge rifle, fired it and thought I’d blown my shoulder off. It took ages to feel better. None of us shot anything but we had a lot of laughter.

Although we had a great deal of fun, the war was always on our minds; men who we knew, not returning from missions. One starry night we were walking in the village with a couple of GIs and we suddenly noticed some way off, an engine which didn’t sound like an aeroplane. Then the engine cut out and it came down — it was one of the dreadful V1 rockets that the Germans were firing from the Dutch coast and aimed mostly at the London area. After the explosion, we all stood there for some minutes with our own thoughts of the suffering caused.

We soon learned to identify planes. My brother was keen to join the RAF as soon as he was old enough. We had maps on the kitchen wall from the newspaper to show where the fighting was on the land, along with a full page of pictures of aeroplanes.

We went every Sunday to Ringshall Church and we realised the Americans from the 438th and 861st Engineering Group had moved in at Ringshall Hall. They didn’t have huts to live in but had bell tents in the meadows to the rear of the hall. They travelled all over East Anglia every day, putting up more phone lines. It amused us as we hadn’t seen anyone before running up the telegraph poles in spiked boots. I accused one of running up there just like a monkey and he came down twice as quickly. I couldn’t run away as I was laughing too much. As the winter went on they said it was very uncomfortable in the tents. It was wet and much colder than the winters we have now. One asked to see me on a date and he never turned up. When I saw him again he said he’d had a bad cold, got fed up with it, and so got drunk. I didn’t drink then and asked what good that had done him and he said “Well, I sure felt better about it”. They said they had wooden walkways between the tents and with the bad weather came the mud. There was no proper road for the trucks to come out and where they drove out it was knee deep in mud. On one occasion, they sent a message to say please come and see us as they were in quarantine as they had caught one of the children’s illnesses. There were about 40 crowding around the barrier just glad to talk to someone.

When the time came to leave, they had their heads shaved and were the first ones to go for D Day. When we saw Paddy’s dad the next weekend, he was so sad and said, “The boys have gone”. He had been a soldier years earlier and really felt for them. They had been so full of fun and now were going in the thick of the fighting.

By the time we started dating, many girls had been left ‘holding the baby’ by all nationalities and we were not going to make ourselves worse off. We both came from loving but poor families due to the low wages of farm workers.

We would see the village girls and admire their babies as we walked off to go dancing saying “blow that for a game of soldiers”. We were always laughing and when a song became popular it was “The things we did last summer, we’ll remember all winter long”.

Sixty years later Paddy and I are still friends and we often remember and laugh at the fun we had with the ‘Friendly Invasion’.

Joyce Chalkley (nee Scase) 2005