The Gentle Alliance

AMERICANS ABROAD The Gentle Alliance Somewhere in Britain, each and every average gloomy day or night, ten U.S. airmen whisper to ten British girls ten variations on the universal theme "I love you; will you marry me?" Ten times out of ten the British girl is likely to answer "yes." Not even during the anti-Americanism that flared up after the Suez crisis did the number of Air Force-British marriages slow down from the 3,000-plus a year of the last five years.

These are no casual, tomorrow-we-die marriages of convenience, or even--broadly speaking--marriages brought off at the point of a shotgun. They are authorized and supervised under stern rules that many a Stateside parent could wish for, with the U.S. Air Force playing the role of a straitlaced, old-fashioned Dutch uncle. According to regulations, the airman must have his commanding officer's permission to marry, and the British girl must prove 1) that she is legally free to marry, and 2) that she can meet the requirements of U.S. immigration, e.g., that she has no police record, no subversive background and no mental or communicable disease. After the girl has filled out the forms, her file is turned over to Scotland Yard for criminal and security check. Regulations also require that both parties submit to a medical examination.

Cruel But Humane. Beyond these regulations every couple must see the chaplain. The chaplain (Protestant, Catholic or Jewish, according to the couple's request) asks every possible pertinent question. How did they meet? Any previous marriages or children? How much sex experience does each have? How much education? How do their families feel about it? How do they view the responsibilities of marriage? If the chaplain approves, he advises the airman's unit commander whether the marriage should be permitted, delayed or discouraged (and few British parsons or registrars will marry them without the commanding officer's certificate of approval).

Such marriage counseling often digs cruelly, but always humanely. One day a chaplain advised delay when he found out that the airman was deep in debt (which the British girl had not known). Another chaplain, after hearing the story of a well-off British girl who wanted to marry an airman with a grade-school education and go home with him to a small Pennsylvania coal-mining town, also recommended delay. Still another chaplain tried to discourage the marriage of a Southern Negro to a British white girl, even to the point of going to the girl's parents and explaining how difficult things might be for her in the U.S. The marriage was approved when the parents said that the airman had become "like a son to us," and "if they have too many problems they can always have a home with us."

"The Little Things." Why are British girls so willing to marry Americans? Because the girls admire "the little things" about American airmen, e.g., "he respects a woman more than what the English boys do" and "he's always telling my mother he loves her daughter," and "he's never more pleased than when he's doing something about the house." American airmen reply: "Over here the girls take more pride in what they do," and "I've always wanted a girl who was feminine--something very delicate."

Fewer than one in ten of the couples causes the chaplains any form of concern, a figure solow that the Air Force takes great pride in it. The airmen seem more mature and sensible nowadays, say the chaplains, and there are none of World War II's fine but often tragic marriages on the eve of battle. Nobody can prove it, but the chaplains believe that Air Force-British marriages work out better, generally, than service marriages in the U.S. "Today a man is careful who he takes home," said one chaplain, "and with the economic improvement in Britain a girl doesn't need a meal ticket. These girls are just plain good homemakers."

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