During WWII, American soldiers were forbidden from fraternizing with German girls, no matter how comely or eager. Corporal Harold Goodden could hardly resist this mannequin, replete with German officer’s cap and lustrous locks. Surely she was not harboring Nazi tendencies.
But rulebooks be damned. By 1949 (four years later) over 20,000 German war brides had emigrated to the United States to join their charming US serviceman (and to get the H out of Europe).
Italy was also the enemy, but no matter to stationed soldiers. No less than 412 brides were all aboard the liner Algonquin in this shot. Clearly there was more than “fraternization” going on.
Women from many nations soon found the US to be home. An estimated 100, 000 UK women, 1,500 hundred New Zealand women, and 15,000 Australian women married American soldiers and moved to the US as well.
Ireland was neutral during WWII, and evidently Irish lasses were not immune to the charms of American soldiers. Exactly one year after the above picture was printed, these Irish war brides set sail for a new life in New York, where their babies would be introduced to their American fathers.
I Don't Get It 
Love it.. my mother came from a small village in Hampshire UK and the fraternisation rules were firmly in place there too. Obviously not too firmly as my mother said a number of babies were born in the next nine months..It was the custom for the girl’s mother to go through the charade of being pregnant, giving birth and then bringing up the baby as one of her own alongside its ‘sister’. A number of these children accompanied their sisters to America at the end of the war to be united with their father!
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How interesting! I did wonder how many girls were actually “brides” before the babies were conceived or even brides at all. Better to go through the charade than to give the baby away certainly!
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I agree many never were told any different and the village accepted them without question.. I know that some married local guys later and some took their children with them then too. We look at modern teenagers and forget there is nothing new in history!
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I had no idea there were that many “war brides” from the UK. That may explain the resentment the locals had for the Yanks.
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Their men were killed in action, and we took their women to boot!
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