Pub Politics: A Primer for American Servicemen in 1943

    The scene is a typical English pub at suppertime in summer of 1943. The usual crowd is in the pub, men and women alike: an English sailor and his father playing a board game, two tough-looking Scotsmen in uniform lean against the bar while two women sit nearby discussing the events of the day; a solitary man sits at a table reading the newspaper while behind him a group of neighbors play a game of darts. It is a calm sedate scene of wartime domestic tranquility.

The heart of English small town life, the "Pub." 

    Hollywood star Burgess Meredith, since 1942 a member of the U.S. Army, leans nonchalantly at the door surveying the scene approvingly when a sharply dressed U.S. soldier struts into the pub. “Get a load of this,” Meredith purrs with a knowing look as the soldier proceeds to insult the English father and son by saying that they're “playing a girl's game,” then strides to the bar and crudely flirts with the barmaid who is old enough to be his mother. “Hiya babe, whatcha doin' tonight,” he asks in a flippant New York accent after he strokes her chin with his finger. “Firewatchin',” she retorts coldly, “Whadaya havin'?” The disappointed soldier chides her, “You're one hep tomayta,” reaches into his pocket and flashes his stack of English bills, asks if the money is any good, and brags to the barmaid that “I've got a million of 'em.” The two Scotsmen (wearing kilts with their uniforms which are lined with ribbons) come into view and the serviceman calls them out with a whoop and sneers “Twenty years a chambermaid and never cracked a pot.” He spies the ribbons and asks the Scotsmen if they earned the ribbons for “good conduct.” One of the Scotsmen asks if the American likes being in England and the Yank says “I don't like it. Back home I have steak for breakfast, and there's six in the family and every morning we all have steak for breakfast.” As the American starts to make his exit, he claps the Scotsman on the shoulder and says, “Well Sandy, take care of yourself.” He looks down at the kilt, and acidly jokes “And keep your skirts clean!” By this point, everyone in the bar is looking at him in disgust. “Guess I better blow,” he says then disappears in a cloud of smoke. Meredith states that he had to do that as the soldier was “too bad an example,” and then proceeds to win over the pub with his own calm, quiet, and charming demeanor.

Burgess Meredith was the star of the wartime training film
entitled "A Welcome to Britain" which was released in late 1943
and became part of the regular orientation for
newly arrived American servicemen in England. 

    By the summer of 1943, the U.S. Army Air Forces in England had begun a rapid expansion that would eventually see nearly a half million airmen stationed on the island. While American servicemen and British civilians shared a common language, religion, and culture, old antagonisms and a fundamental lack of familiarity with English life (the last great migration of English to the U.S. predated the U.S. Civil War) presented a ripe opportunity for misunderstandings that could undermine the alliance American (and British) leaders hoped to form. Hitler's propagandists were already busy flooding the airwaves with commentary meant to rekindle old resentments and disagreements between the two countries. Seizing upon American resentment about WWI and the failure of many countries to pay their war debts to the U.S. to stoke American passions against England, German propagandists also asked the English why they were fighting to save “Uncle Shylock and his silver dollar.”

    The War Department and the Office of War Information in cooperation with the British Ministry of Information, made efforts to counter this German effort by publishing A Short Guide to Great Britain, and also collaborated on a 1943 film called “A Welcome to Britain” starring Burgess Meredith and Bob Hope. (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyYSBBE1DFw ) “The first and major duty Hitler has given his propaganda chiefs is to separate Britain and America and spread distrust among them,” warned the introduction to A Short Guide to Great Britain. “We can defeat Hitler's propaganda with a weapon of our own: plain, common horse sense.”

8th Air Force commander General Ira Eaker (right) made a brief appearance at the beginning of "A Welcome to Britain." 

    “A Welcome to Britain” became part of the required indoctrination for every American serviceman who arrived in England upon its release in late 1943 and copies of A Short Guide to Great Britain were likewise distributed to each and every soldier. Copies of the booklet still remain relatively common and can be purchased on eBay in decent condition for roughly $20. My personal copy was inscribed by a airman attached to the 486^th Bomb Group, an 8^th Air Force B-24 outfit based at RAF Sudbury. The booklet has an intriguing but unexplained nugget drawn upon the interior map of Great Britain- a line labeled “back” is drawn with directional arrows from Le Havre, France around the southern horn of England to the Welsh town of Cardiff on the western coast of England with the date September 15, 1944, indicated a sea voyage of some sort from the continent back to England.

A Short Guide to Great Britain, 1942

    The intent of both the film and the booklet was to give incoming Yanks some basic rules for social navigation. “The best way to get on in Britain is very much the best way to get on in America,” the Guide stated. “The same sort of courtesy and decency and friendliness that go over big in America will go over big in Britain. They will like your frankness as long as it is friendly,” a point also emphasized in “A Welcome to Britain.” The primary message was to conduct yourself like a guest, and take care to not criticize. Don't brag about how the U.S. won WWI (“each nation did its share”) or how poorly the British did in the first years of WWII. “Remember that crossing the ocean doesn't automatically make you a hero.” And “NEVER criticize the King or Queen.”

    Another key point was that the “British are reserved, not unfriendly. On a small crowded island with 45 million people, each man learns to guard his privacy carefully, and is equally careful not to invade another man's privacy.” The film makes this same point as Meredith encourages the viewers to give the Englishmen time to warm up to you. The British also disliked braggarts and show-offs, and especially frowned upon well-paid American servicemen throwing their money around. “When pay day comes it would be sound practice to learn to spend your money according to British standards. The British 'Tommy' is apt to be specially touchy about the difference between his wages and yours.” The British reputation for toughness was also noted. “The English language didn't spread across the oceans and over the mountains and jungles and swamps of the world because these people were panty-waists,” the Guide chided. “Don't be misled by the British tendency to be soft-spoken and polite. If need be, they can be plenty tough.”

    The English countryside, while aged and picturesque, also showed the ravages of war. “Britain may look a little shop-worn and grimy to you,” the Guide stated. “The British people are anxious to have you know that you are not seeing their country at its best. The trains are unwashed and grimy because men and women are needed for more important work than car washing. British taxicabs look antique because the British build tanks for herself and Russia and hasn't time to make new cars.” Colonel Dale O. Smith, who led the 384^th Bomb Group of the 8^th Air Force for a year, recalled that upon arriving in England, he knew he was entering a “war zone” and not visiting a “nation at war.”

    Sergeant Eddie Picardo, a tailgunner in the 44^th Bomb Group, recalled an incident where he inadvertently ran afoul of the principals of pub politics. It occurred shortly after he arrived in theater and had been sent to Northern Ireland for ten days of 8^th Air Force-directed training. He slipped out of camp and found a local pub hosting a dance. He went in and soon was jitterbugging with a comely Irish lass. “Finally the music stopped and we found ourselves in front of the bandstand and on the bandstand stood a photograph of King George,” he wrote. “My Irish beauty held my hand and walked me up to the photograph. I thought she was going to flatter her king, but instead she looked at the picture and suddenly shouted 'You bastard' and spit on the picture. Instantly some guy threw a punch at her. I blocked it. A second later, someone hit me in the back of the head. The next thing I knew I had bodies under me and bodies over me and there we were with no passes in the middle of a political and religious firestorm between Catholics and Protestants. Catholic or not, it was a fight I wanted no part of.” (see Eddie S. Picardo's Tales of a Tail Gunner: A Memoir of Seattle and World War II, Seattle: Hara Publishing, 1996, pg. 146)

Meredith and an unnamed African-American soldier made a pitch for racial peace in "A Welcome to Britain." Meredith points out to the G.I.s that the racial divisions so much a part of life in the U.S. have no place in England. "The point is, we're not at home." 

    A final interesting aspect of “A Welcome to Britain” is late in the film when Burgess Meredith meets an African-American soldier on a train. The two men walk off the train in friendly conversation with an elderly Englishwoman from Birmingham who invites both soldiers to her home for tea. When the other soldier walks off to purchase some cigarettes, Meredith speaks right to the camera. “Now let's be frank about it. There's colored soldiers as well as white here, and there's less social restrictions in this country. That's what you heard: an Englishwoman invited a colored boy to tea, she was polite about it, he was polite about it. Now look, that might not happen at home, but the point is, we're not at home. The point is, too, if we bring a lot of prejudices here, what are we going to about them?” Meredith then spies General John C.H. Lee, head of the Services of Supply, and asks him to say a word about the issue of race. General Lee gives a short speech about the Army giving African-Americans an equal chance at real citizenship. “We're all here as soldiers, and everything we do, we do as American soldiers, not Negroes and white men, as rich or poor, but as American soldiers. It's not a bad time, is it, to learn to respect each other both ways.” Lee's progressive attitude on racial integration popped up again later in 1944 when he pushed for Eisenhower's headquarters to accept African-Americans as replacement infantrymen.

    After the General leaves, the African-American soldier offers Meredith a cigarette and takes one himself. Meredith then lights the other's man's cigarette while patriotic music plays in the background. It is a remarkably forward-thinking piece of film that may have helped plant some seeds that germinated in the Civil Rights movement 20 years later. At the very least it challenges some of the racial mores of the time.