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The biggest landscape and cultural impact on the East of England since the Norman Conquest, 900 years earlier. That was The Friendly Invasion, when the Mighty Eighth Air Force became Masters of the Air over Europe to help end the tyranny of Nazism.
It was an extraordinary time, unprecedented in history. From 1942 to 1945 hundreds of thousands of American service personnel ‘invaded’ Great Britain. It’s estimated up to two million US men and women passed through the British Isles within these three years. At its peak strength in Britain, the USAAF employed 450,000 people, most of them in the East of England.
These American servicemen were invited into an English home for Afternoon Tea.
Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire would never be quite the same again.
These young Americans brought a breath of fresh air. The Friendly Invasion introduced a rural backwater to the big band music of Glenn Miller, peanut butter, chewing gum, nylon stockings, donuts, jitterbugging, Coca Cola and much more. A slice of the American Dream had crossed the Atlantic.
The Americans had heard about ‘jolly old England’; their hosts knew America as the land of cowboys and Hollywood.
As one general said: ‘In all history, probably no two allies were as genuinely friendly to each other as the United States and Great Britain.’
Marriages between English girls and US servicemen were common.
Today, we continue to honour, remember and reflect on the sacrifices and bravery of the Mighty Eighth Air Force. Their contribution to the Allies’ strategic bombing offensive helped turn the tide of war against the Nazis and free occupied Europe.
The airfields are silent now. Many have been returned to the arable fields they once were. Others have been lovingly tended, rescued and conserved by groups of volunteers. They stand as monuments to what happened more than 70 years ago and ensure their legacy lives on.
The streets and pubs of ancient cities and towns, such as Norwich, Cambridge, Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds, rang with American accents. Out of the way country spots, more used to cattle and crops, places such as Old Buckenham, Framlingham, Horham and Halesworth, were transformed by the roar of heavy bomber and fighter engines.
The 316th Troop Carrier Group organised a festive party on Christmas Day 1944 where Father Christmas brought presents for local children.
‘To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at that moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to their neck and into the death. So we had won after all.’ So said Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill following America’s entry into the Second World War in 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.
Father Christmas with an orphan child at a Christmas party, organised by the 316th Troop Carrier Group, on Christmas Day 1944 at Cottesmore.
Churchill, an English aristocrat with an American heiress for a mother, knew that to win the war, the industrial and military might of the USA would be vital.
It wasn’t all plain sailing. To the jibe that the Yanks were “over-sexed, over-paid and over here” the Americans retorted that the British were “under-sexed, underpaid and under Eisenhower”.
The Eighth Air Force’s Brigadier General Chauncey hosts a Christmas party for British Children.
But fears that the alliance would come apart at the seams were unfounded. We were in this together.
There was also something deeper between the Yanks and the Brits. Partly historical – it was settlers from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland who had formed the first wave of colonists to North America. The majority of passengers on The Mayflower were from Norfolk and Suffolk.
Personnel of the 466th Bomb Group assist a farmer at Bungay, 1944. Image via George Parker.
How the East of England helped make the USA
We were also ‘two nations divided by a common language’, understanding each other without a translator, although who knew if US servicemen could understand the thick countryside dialect of old farmers they might have come across.
And there was politics – both Britain and the USA adopted democracy during the 19th Century and never relinquished or questioned that was the best form of government. That was reason enough to fight Nazi fascism.
Now read The Friendly Invasion e-magazine, with forewords by HRH Prince William and Tom Hanks.
Eastern England is ideal for airfields. Its relatively flat terrain and proximity to the continent meant it became an unsinkable aircraft carrier. It also became temporary home to the United States Army Air Force.
It wasn’t just air crew, of course. That air force needed firemen, engineers, weather analysts, ground defence, an army of people involved in administration, logistics and supply, plenty of cooks as well as civilian support staff recruited locally. For every flier, there were three ancillaries, meaning any airbase could support more than 3000 people.
There were plenty of new additions brought about by The Friendly Invasion.
Hundreds of miles of concrete runway were laid in a matter of months (it took 250,000 tonnes of concrete to build one runway). These communities were the ‘Fields of Little America’, small towns that were often bigger than the rural settlements around them.
It has been said the logistical and cultural change was the greatest since the Norman invasion of 1066.
So many English brides and girlfriends went to America, the authorities had to requisition two cruise liners.
The Americans were a revelation to the British. They were a big hit with local kids – and the local girls too. Wartime conditions led to some extraordinary behaviour. The official estimate for children fathered out of wedlock by GIs was about 24,000. There were also many marriages, and ‘GI brides’ would sail for the USA after the war, so many that cruise ships had to be requisitioned to take them.
Americans were renowned for their generosity. People who were children at the time tell fond tales of how youngsters were ‘adopted’ by airmen.
On Christmas Day, 1942, USAAF officers based in Norfolk hosted 60 local children, and then took them to the pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Norwich.
Three little girls hold up a balloon celebrating the 100th mission of the 466th Bomb Group in front of a B-24 Liberator nicknamed Black Cat.
Two years later, the Eastern Daily Press newspaper reported ‘thousands’ of Norfolk children getting a Christmas they would never forget courtesy of the generous Americans. As guests of the bomber bases, they got unheard of treats such as ice cream. Santa Claus arrived at Bury St Edmunds in a Flying Fortress bomber, then the children helped load up a Liberator aircraft with fruit, candy and toys they had made to send to kids in recently liberated Paris.
Those who experienced these events have not forgotten. They have handed the stories down to us, the generations that followed. The legacy of the Friendly Invasion is still with us. That intense heat of war forged a bond that was never broken.
