Alan Allport's website

Sunday, 30th September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

"British soldiers are secretly marrying German girls," insists People correspondent Evadne Price in her latest fratting-scandal headline. "The secret wedding ceremonies are being performed in Roman Catholic churches," she continues, "and men openly boast that no power on earth is going to put their marriages aside ...

Many of the soldiers with whom I talked were faintly disgusted and rather cynical about the matter. What do they want to marry them for? All these girls need is a good chocolate and cigarette ration ...

On the other hand, I met several unmarried men who mean to marry their frauleins the day the law permits it. And I met two British soldiers who were actually trying to get their wives to agree to a divorce so that they could marry their Germans - one of them had three young children in London. I asked him what his wife had done. He answered: Nothing. I just like this one better.

End of month accounting: on June 30, 1945, there were 4,653,000 men and 437,200 women in His Majesty's armed and auxiliary forces.

During September, 1945, 102,856 men and 19,000 women were released under the Class A scheme; 9,815 men and 39 women were released under the Class B scheme; with 131,543 men and 22,293 women being released in total (including miscellaneous discharges on compassionate and medical grounds).

Overall, since the start of demobilisation, 351,984 men and 96,549 women have been discharged from HM Forces.

Data from Fighting With Figures: A Statistical Digest of the Second World War (HMSO, 1995).

Saturday, 29th September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

Picture Post looks at the demobilisation experiences of the Soviet soldier discharged from the Red Army:

The Red Army man, returning from Germany, travels back along the way he came, past forests and fields that are just beginning to grow again and cover their scars with leaves and grass. What he sees is mostly burned-out villages, with new huts going up on all sides. Many of the peasantry are wearing German uniforms, taken from the depots after the Germans had cleared out.

At all the big stations where the demob trains halt, the local schoolchildren still turn out with drums and banners to greet the men. They have been doing so since the end of June, and so far their enthusiasm has not flagged. The halt stations have big dining rooms, especially for returning soldiers where they can get a hot meal. Bath houses and barber shops have been temporarily rigged-up on the platforms, and decorated with slogans of welcome such as work is waiting for every demobilised Red Army man ...

Meanwhile, the New Statesman imagines a sardonic episode at a military court-martial in Hamburg, given the strictures of Field-Marshal Montgomery's recent revised non-fratting order (which bans marriages with German civilians):

Prosecutor: "You have heard the evidence of this young woman that ... you intend to make her your wife."

Defendant: "Whatever I may have said, sir, in a moment of some excitement, I can assure you now that my intentions are strictly dishonourable."

Judge: "You give me your word, then, that you will not legitimise the child?"

Defendant: "I do, sir."

Judge: "Case dismissed!"

Friday, 28th September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

The Times reports that the first of 40 ships carrying 60,000 former Far East prisoners of war and civilian internees from Singapore docked in Suez yesterday. "It was a memorable scene when the ship docked at the gaily decorated pier, where a band played 'Rule, Britannia' ... as they filed down the gangway, all the men and women received a special news pamphlet, 'News from Britain.' They then boarded a train consisting of first-class coaches for the short trip to a rehabilitation camp on the fringe of the desert at the foot of barren Mount Ataka. Here they were guided through reclothing depots."

More than 1,000 War Office soldier-clerks, some with 10-20 years of military service, have been ordered to learn to salute again, reports the Daily Herald. "The order has aroused widespread bitterness and discontent," an anonymous NCO told the paper yesterday. "We have passed through all stages of military training, including modified commando courses and street fighting. Some have fought overseas. Most branches are overloaded with demobilisation work. Now working hours will be cut into by this unecessary training."

Thursday, 27th September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

The Times' military correspondent ponders some of the competing demands on transportation that are slowing down repatriation and release of British servicemen based overseas:

The governing factor is shipping ... apart from the British Army, there is a large Canadian force, together with small Australian and New Zealand forces, awaiting repatriation from Europe. There is another large Indian force, chiefly in the central Mediterranean, to be sent home, though the ships which take the Indians east can be used to take the British troops west. There are great numbers of colonial troops all over the world, including the Africans who have done such valuable work in Burma. African troops are known to suffer exceptionally from home-sickness, but these are being given no privileges in repatriation or allowed to get out of their turn. On top of all this there is the maintenance of the 'PYTHON' scheme which in the Far East means repatriation after service of three years and four months ...

"Wear your best frock, use lots of lipstick," suggests Diana Gibson of the Daily Mail to wives and sweethearts of homecoming ex-Far East POWS who are expected in Britain soon. "There is nothing wrong with th vast majority of these men that good food, quiet, and a quick return to normal home life will not put right ... let them eat what they want and do what they like. Let them talk of their experiences without encouraging them to dwell on them, and above all help them to forget the whole thing as quickly as possible."

 

Wednesday, 26th September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

LAC Brian Poole writes to his American penpal: "I think some of the married men will miss the freedom they got in the services. Steady home life will take some time to get accustomed to.”

Not just the men, if Ray Allister's postbag in Modern Woman is anything to go by:

My husband, discharged, has got his old job back. His salary at present is less than what I have been earning every week for four years. Our home was bombed and we live in two rooms with little prospect of a house for a long time, yet he wants me to give up my job and stay at home. It’s not as if we could have a baby in two rooms, or as if I were keeping work from an ex-serviceman or woman … the post was created during the war … I can’t face now, after independence and the interest of working with other people, the dreary monotony of keeping house on inadequate money. My husband’s attitude has almost spoiled my joy at his homecoming ...

Tuesday, 25th September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

British troops in Paris are living like "poor relations" compared to their Allied colleagues, according to the Daily Mirror. While American servicemen (who already receive much  higher wages than their British counterparts) receive a 850 franc per month subsidy from the French government, British personnel get not a penny; the cafes and theatres of the French capital are full of Americans "spending lavishly," while British soldiers and RAF airmen "wander disconsolately about the streets, or stay in NAAFI clubs ... they feel they are forgotten men, humiliated in the face of their friends. For them the cheapest meal in a cafe costs more than a day's pay."

Monday, 24th September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

Having been beset with inconsistencies and confusion over the past several months, a single (and much-relaxed) non-fraternisation policy for Allied forces in Germany will now be uniformly applied to occupation troops of all nationalities and in all zones, reports the Times. Allied servicemen and -women cannot be billeted with German families without permission of their zone commanders, and they cannot marry German nationals. Field-Marshal Montgomery appeals to members of the British armed forces to "conduct themselves with dignity and to use their common sense when dealing with the Germans, twice our enemies during the last 30 years."

Sunday, 23rd September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

According to reports from Montreal, The News of the World says, demobilised Canadian servicemen are being blamed for a post-war crime wave across the Dominion. "Two armed and masked robbers who have been raising houses of well-to-do people here are suspected by some of their victims to be returned officers ...

These robbers, who have made several important hauls, have not scrupled to draw revolvers or uses violence on householders. One woman was injured when she tried to scream and was stunned and locked in a bedroom cupboard ... when the robbers had got away with jewelry and money the husband received a telephone call. An 'educated voice' informed him: if you are wondering where your wife is, you should look in the bedroom cupboard ...

Saturday, 22nd September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

"Unfortunately, as we all know, during the past few years the standard of morality and faithfulness has fallen grievously low," lamented Mr. Justice Tucker at the Old Bailey yesterday, during his summing up of the case of Private Frederick Hooker of Shoreditch, father of 11, who stabbed his adulterous wife to death with a knife in August:

We know there are numerous cases of men returning from the war who have found that their wives have been unfaithful, and wives have found their husbands have been unfaithful. It remains the law, subject to certain aspects of provocation, that no man and no woman is allowed to take the law into their own hands ... that should be known by everybody. That is murder and nothing else. If Parliament thinks fit to pass an Act to say that soldiers who, on returning to find their wives unfaithful, may kill them, and if they do it, it will be manslaughter, it will be the law of the land; but until that is done it is not.

"I would like to draw attention to the perfectly disgusting way that service people are treated in restaurants and cafes," complains an RAF airman in Picture Post:

Recently my friend and I walked into a restaurant and sat for over half-an-hour waiting to be served. Meanwhile ten civilians walked in and were attended to immediately ...

Friday, 21st September, 1945

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

Mr. Attlee is not the only public figure feeling the heat over demobilisation, reports the Times. Stung by Congressional criticism, General George Marshall has made a personal statement assuring House and Senate members that "all speed" is being maintained in releasing men from the US Army. The point system for discharge (currently, American servicemen need to have earned 85 points through cumulative war service) will be progressively reduced throughout the Fall so that the number of releases per month will rise from 450,000 to 800,000. As in Britain, there have been complaints that men on home service are being held for an unecessarily long time in uniform because soldiers with equivalent discharge criteria overseas cannot be transported home quickly enough.

The Times also comments on the special problems of ex-officers seeking employment. "Many officers are now leaving [the Forces] who, by reason of their youth, have qualified for nothing but war, but in a war which demanded youth at any price, have risen to senior positions of considerable responsibility and relatively high pay ...

They have acquired experience and power of command and a sense of responsibility; and they have matured even beyond their years in the rigorous school of battle. But these personal assets and qualities will not usually be applicable to civilian tasks until there has been a process of adaptation and training ... the time to make plans is now, while the sense of obligation to those who have served and fought is still fresh, and the need for men of character and resource is still great.