Happily Ever After…Eventually

by Guy Miller, Vice Chair Emeritus, Chennault Aviation and Military Museum

June is traditionally the month most associated with weddings.  It is without question that in June 1945 matrimony was very much on the minds of a hundred thousand or so people in Europe.

The war in Europe ended in May 1945 with the death of Hitler and the subsequent surrender of the German military.  America’s young soldiers and sailors in Europe had been away from home a long time and in their companionship with local women many found love.  

Most Europeans easily accepted and encouraged friendships with the Americans.  Women of war-ravaged Britain found American soldiers’ carefree, happy-go-lucky demeanor irresistible.  The liberated people of continental Europe saw Americans as nothing short of heroes.  Americans also seemed so wealthy in comparison to destitute Europe with seemingly unending supplies of food, chocolates, cigarettes, and stockings.  But many European parents did not want their daughters dating American soldiers much less marrying these foreigners.  Back home, single American women were upset with the idea of “their” men dating foreign women and bringing home foreign brides.  The U.S. military believed family responsibilities would be a distraction that impaired the effectiveness of their purpose and mission.  Accordingly the U.S. military actively discouraged servicemen from marrying by initially imposed many restrictions on marriages between servicemen and foreign women.

But love usually finds a way.

American men and European women dated and married despite any obstacles making this difficult.  By June and subsequent months of 1945, returning to America was very much on the minds of millions of Americans in uniform and about 100,000 of them wanted to come home with someone they had met and married while overseas.  The “war brides” wanted to join their husbands for a new life in the United States but the obstacle in their way was the restrictive American immigration policies.  Legal entry of immigrants into the United States was constrained by the National Origins Formula quota system as established by the Immigration Act of 1924.  The 1924 Act barred Asians other than Filipinos from immigration and set strict quotas set for specific countries that was based on two percent of the U.S. population originating from that country as represented in the 1890 census.  

In 1945 the pressure to bring America’s fighting men home was immense and these men demanded they be allowed to bring their new wives and sweethearts, even if from countries proscribed by the 1924 Act.  U.S. military and political leadership eventually had no choice but to bow to the insurmountable volume of American public opinion and to establish a pathway forward for GI brides and sweethearts.  59 Stat. 659, “The War Brides Act,” was enacted on December 28, 1945 “[T]o expedite the admission to the United States of alien spouses and alien minor children of citizen members of the United States armed forces.”  The Act exempted “war brides” and their dependents from the quota systems of the Immigration Act of 1924 and granted them free passage to their new homes in America.  

Until the War Brides Act was passed, however, and then given the logistics and distances involved, many “war brides” and their children waited months and sometimes even years before coming to America.  

In early 1946 the U.S. Army began “Operation War Bride;” which the press jokingly referred to as “Operation Diaper Run”.  The first ship, the converted ocean-liner troop transport SS Argentina, left Southampton, England on January 26th with 152 British women, 173 children and one bridegroom and arrived in the United States on February 4th.  The Army operation eventually transported an estimated 70,000 people from Europe including 37,553 war brides and 59 “war bridegrooms” from the “British Isles.”  In the three years between the passage of the War Brides Act and the expiration of the Act and subsequent amendments in December 1948, an estimated 300,000 foreign war brides and dependents moved to the United States.  

The “War Brides Act” had significant intended and unintended immediate, short, and long-term consequences.  The  Act may have expired in 1948 but it set a precedent that helped guide American policy through subsequent conflicts and up to the present day.  The Alien Fiancées and Fiancés Act of 1946 helped further ease barriers to the marriage of American service members and foreign nationals.  The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 addressed marriage issues for Korean War service members.  Between 1942 and 1952, about one million American soldiers married foreign women from 50 different countries.  Actual numbers are hard to pin down but up to 100,000 war brides were British, 150,000 to 200,000 hailed from continental Europe including 14,175 German brides, and 16,000 came from Australia and New Zealand.  Using the exemption from the National Origin Formula quota system, a significant number of women and children from China, Korea, Japan, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Africa were able to legally immigrate to the United States.  During the Vietnam War era, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 finally eliminated the National Origins Formula altogether.

Because the United States is mostly a country of immigrants and descendants of immigrants, the war brides were in good company.  Most war brides blended seamlessly into the fabric of American life.  As  one British war bride remarked, “If I didn’t like it here, I would go home.”

If your family is 1st or 2nd generation American, or even 3rd generation for many, you have the American military to thank for your family’s ease of entry into our Nation.