Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942-1945.

Churchill was right. Americans and Britons did have a special relationship--thousands of them between English women and American servicemen

Once when I was having dinner with Studs Terkel, he mentioned that he had interviewed more than 100 people for an oral history of World War II, but was at a loss for a title. I immediately suggested "The Good War," saying it was the way I and others thought about our generation's war, as compared to the aimless 10-year Vietnam War. After generously crediting me for the title of his book, which received the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, the inimitable Studs wrote: "It is a phrase that has been frequently voiced by men of his and my generation, to distinguish the war from other wars, declared and undeclared. Quotation marks have been added, not as a matter of caprice or editorial comment, but simply because the adjective `good' mated to the noun `war' is so incongruous."

His wisdom came to mind while reading Rich Relations, a highly original book by David Reynolds about a largely unexamined aspect of World War II: the interaction between the Americans stationed in England and the British. Reynolds, one of Britain's leading historians, specializes in studies of Anglo-American relations, and his knowledge shows. He subtitles his new book "The American Occupation of Britain, 1942-1945." The only fault I find with the subtitle is that the word occupation doesn't have quotation marks around it. There are, after all, occupations and "Occupations." The Nazi occupation of conquered Europe systematically led its victims to the gas chambers of Auschwitz; the American "Occupation" of Britain led to victory over tyranny.

Reynolds borrows the word from a comment made by George Orwell in December 1943. "It is difficult to go anywhere in London," Orwell said, "without having the feeling that Britain is now Occupied Territory. The general consensus of opinion seems to be that the only American soldiers with decent manners are the Negroes."

Fortunately, Reynolds looks beyond Orwell's stereotype of the loutish American. He writes that the three million Americans who passed through Britain on the way to battle each had experiences as singular as their own personalities. The cliche went that the Americans were "oversexed, overpaid, overfed, and over here." Less familiar was the Yank riposte that the British Tommy was "undersexed, underpaid, under fed, and under Eisenhower." But behind the wisecracks was a plain truth: The GIs who left their homes to aid Britain and defeat a common enemy were not American Hessians.

This spring marks the 50th anniversary of V-E Day, followed in the summer by the fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima and V-J Day. Ironies abound. Now the two strongest nations in Europe and Asia--economically, not militarily--are Germany and Japan. The downfall of the Soviet and satellite states has led to civil, ethnic, and tribal wars around the world. One reads Rich Relations against a background of unblinkered knowledge of lost empires, shattered alliances, and new hope for stronger international partnerships.

One of the things I found admirable in Rich Relations was that Reynolds looks backward as well as inward, deepening the ideas behind his book. He writes that when Britain went to war in 1939, its main ally was France. Neville Chamberlain, then prime minister, said that it was "always best and safest to count on nothing from the Americans except words." As we all know, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had a larger vision, using language to ignite American sympathies for his beleaguered country and to point out the perils the English-speaking nations faced if Hitlerism prevailed. Churchill said that America and England had, as they do now, a "special relationship."

The major part of Rich Relations concerns the behavior of Americans in uniform. Reynolds has unearthed scores of official and unofficial reports, criminal and marriage records, letters, diaries, and even wartime polls to show how both allies behaved and what they thought of each other. After a survey of the American Eighth Air Force in 1943, its provost marshal concluded: "In general, the American soldier is imbued with a `Limey' complex and has not the desired respect for the British. His feeling toward the British does not amount to an active dislike, but is passive and apathetic. Because of this lack of feeling toward the British, he makes no attempt, generally speaking, to get to know them better."

Like other polls and surveys in war or peace that draw broad conclusions about people's thoughts and emotions, this one sounds cockeyed but the author doesn't challenge it. Instead, he cites opinions by other authorities studying the GI psyche, including the anthropologist Margaret Mead, who wrote in 1944 that "as Johnny thinks of home he learns little in England." She, too, noted that the GI (who wasn't called Johnny) had "practically no contact with English people in groups, with family groups, or clubs, or discussion groups." Obviously, Dr. Mead was a better authority on the sex habits of Samoans than of young Yanks on a weekend pass in London, who were far more interested in the wanton pleasures of Piccadilly Circus than discussing with a nice church group their delight on first looking into Chapman's Homer.

The attraction between American soldiers and British women was mutual. One reason, Reynolds suggests, was that American off-duty uniforms were designed to make the Yanks look good, unlike the hobnailed Tommies who had to socialize in what amounted to battle dress. The GIs were paid three times more than their British counterparts and had more money for food, drink, clothing, and gifts. Ground troops had time on their hands while training for D-Day; airmen risking their lives on bombing missions wanted to live life to the fullest when they returned safely. Of course, many British soldiers were fighting in different comers of the world, leaving lonely wives and girlfriends at home. Many British women worked in defense factories to make ends meet in rationed times; they, too, felt a need to relax at dances held on and off American military bases. Relationships developed into casual and serious love affairs and unwanted births. Morals loosened for young people enjoying a first taste of independence away from home, just as they did in the United States.

"The biggest headaches were sex and race--relations between free-spending GIs and British women emancipated by wartime, and the management of a segregated Army in a society unused to segregation or indeed to non-whites," Reynolds writes. "On-base, it still mattered if you were a Cracker, a Yankee, a Jew, a Polack. Most American platoons were ethnic potpourris. But off-base, to the British you were all `Yanks.' And you began to realize that, comparatively speaking, you were all Yanks--that the similarities outweighed the differences in a foreign situation."

The British gained their impression of Americans, Reynolds claims, from characters in American movies. The British Establishment and newspapers considered American pictures vulgar, immoral, and a bad influence. If not exactly role models, many moviegoers found the stars glamorous and exciting. Joseph P. Kennedy, the discredited American ambassador who was removed as an embarrassment, was horrified at the way "a great many people in England believe that our home life, history and even legal practices are typified by motion pictures." He even took offense at Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, claiming the film would harm American prestige by making foreign audiences think that "the United States was full of graft, corruption and lawlessness and contains very little in politics that is creditable." Ridiculous as this sounds--especially in light of Kennedy's own financial and romantic ties to Hollywood--many British people did envision the American GI a reflection of screen life.

Of particular concern to the British Establishment was movies' effect on young girls. One Home Office report stated in 1945: "To girls brought up on the cinema, who copied the dress, hair styles, and manners of Hollywood stars, the sudden influx of Americans, speaking like the films, who actually lived in the magic country and who had plenty of money, at once went into the girls' heads. The American attitude toward women, their proneness to spoil a girl, to build up, to exaggerate, talk big, and to act with generosity and flamboyance, helped to make them the most attractive boyfriends."

Rich Relations also treads familiar ground about the conflicts on the command level. In the beginning, there was a certain amount of condescension by the British about the American generals and the green American troops. The Americans were bloodied at Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, but after the defeat they went on to fight as valiantly as the British in Sicily and on the European mainland. Was General Eisenhower a good tactician as well as a remarkable Allied commander? Was Field Marshal Montgomery a brilliant but too-cautious commander? Luckily, the author doesn't venture into such minefields. Reynolds is better on diplomatic relations and largely sticks to his strength. In a book filled with wonderful tidbits, he often comes up with telling quotations. Harold Macmillan, British political advisor at Allied Force Headquarters, explained his philosophy to a new member of his staff in these words:

You will always permit your American colleague

not only to have superior rank to yourself and

much higher pay, but also the feeling that he is

running the show. This will enable you to run it

yourself. We are Greeks in this American Empire.

We must run AFHQ as the Greek slaves ran

the operations of the Emperor Claudius.

As the war intensified, the British and Americans learned to appreciate each other's skills and traditions. The Yanks who flew on long bombing missions into the German heartland earned the respect of "the few" in the Royal Air Force, who, on their own during the Blitz, had defeated the Luftwaffe before the Eighth Air Force arrived. British civilians watched as the Flying Fortresses took off on early daylight missions, counted the smaller number of shot-up planes returning over their houses and fields in the afternoon, and sadly realized that they would never again have a beer at a pub with lost American friends. And as American infantrymen and paratroopers disappeared from local training grounds and were next heard from after the D-Day landings, the people knew that wartime casualty lists were part of the common heritage paid by Britain and the United States to preserve freedom. On the whole, ordinary Brits loved the Americans for what they were doing, and the wartime aura of gratitude and affection lasted well into the fifties.

Special relationship? Definitely. American occupation? Baloney.

Herbert Mitgang, author of Dangerous Dossiers: Exposing the Secret War Against America's Authors, was an Army correspondent and a managing editor of Stars & Stripes in World War II.