The "Pilgrim Brides" or "Petticoat Pilgrims".
Sixty years ago this month, 70,000 British women took part in one of the greatest seaborne migrations in history.
Over the ensuing five months, some 70,000 young British war brides and their babies were transported to the United States as an armada of 20 converted warships and cruise liners criss-crossed the Atlantic to rejoin them with the American military husbands they had met and married during the Second World War.
The War Brides Operation, as the mission was officially known, was launched at the start of 1946 after the US Congress passed emergency one-off legislation to override immigration quotas and allow the British women to move en masse to America. "Those randy Americans were always asking for dates," Mrs Long, 79, says. "You have to remember how it was then. A new wave of men was always off to the war. There was no point planning for the future, the atmosphere was to live for the here and now." READ ON
Good-bye,Piccadilly British War Brides in America by Jenel Virden