GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love (47 page)

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Further Reading

T
HERE ARE SOME
wonderful memoirs written by war brides themselves, among them Joy Beebe's
Snapshots of a War Bride's Life
, Vera Long's
From Britain With Love
, and Irene Hope Hedrick's
Memories of a Big Sky British War Bride.

Two fascinating oral histories of war brides, drawing on many thousands of interviews, are Pamela Winfield's
Sentimental Journey
and Elfrieda Berthiaume Shukert and Barbara Smith Scibetta's
The War Brides of World War II.

Juliet Gardiner's brilliant social histories
Wartime: Britain 1939–1945
and
Over Here: The GIs in Wartime Britain
were a great help to us. Online, check out Michele Thomas's brilliant website the American War Bride Experience (uswarbrides.com), which is packed with brides' stories, book reviews, photos, and more.

Credits

Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

Cover photographs: © by Alfred Eisenstaedt/Getty Images (couple); © by George Marks/Getty Images (background)

This book was originally published in Great Britain in 2013 by HarperCollins Publishers.

P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

GI BRIDES
. Copyright © 2014 by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST U.S. EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.

Barrett, Duncan.

GI brides : the wartime girls who crossed the Atlantic for love / Duncan Barrett & Nuala Calvi.

pages   cm

Summary: “Worn down by years of war and hardship, girls like Sylvia, Margaret, and Gwendolyn were thrilled when American GIs arrived in Britain with their exotic accents, handsome uniforms, and aura of Hollywood glamor. Others, like Rae, who distrusted the Yanks, were eventually won over by their easy charm. So when VE Day finally came, for the 70,000 women who'd become GI brides, it was tinged with sadness—it meant leaving their homeland behind to follow their husbands across the Atlantic. And the long voyage was just the beginning of an even bigger journey. Adapting to a new culture thousands of miles from home, often with a man they barely knew, was difficult—but these women survived the Blitz and could cope with anything.
GI Brides
shares the sweeping, compelling, and moving true stories of four women who gave up everything and crossed an ocean for love.”—Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-06-232805-2 (paperback)

1. World War, 1939–1945—Women—Great Britain. 2. War brides—Great Britain—Biography. 3. Women immigrants—United States—Biography. 4. British Americans—Biography. I. Calvi, Nuala. II. Title.

D810.W7B347   2014

940.53092'6550973—dc23

2014010526

EPub Edition AUGUST 2014 ISBN: 9780062328069

14 15 16 17 18   
OV
/
RRD
   10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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