First Day Out, Sept. 10, 1945
Troop Ship to England
Our "cargo" as we sail from New York on the Ile de France, is some 1100 British members of the armed forces, who have been serving in the Bahamas for up to four years. This is the last lap of their journey back to England and home. There is something very wistful about them. They seem to be wondering-will it be the same? Can they take up the threads of life with the people they knew? They sit in close groups for mutual assurance. A young officer, reading Carlyle, sat in as part of the circle around a table playing gin rummy. As we lay in the harbor last night, the whole lot of them gathered on deck and sang. Some old time songs, some ballads, some hymns. But mostly the popular songs of four years ago. Imagine serveral hundred soldiers, there in New York harbor, going to town with the "The Lambeth Walk."

The three hundred or so British civies-largely women who fought the battles of their Homeland from the safety of Iowa or Pasadena, are intensely British. One doesn't blame them for being happy over ending their exile, but many of them feel they have been "snubbed" in American because they were British. I suspect it was not their British citizenship, and certainly not the achievements of the British soldiers(the basis on which they like to put it) that was snubbed, but their save my hide policy, which Americans (perhaps because we never had to face their problems) find hard to explain.

The troops themselves are far less chauvinistic. I went to town with one youngster on the subject only to find he has married an American girl and taken out his first U.S. citizenship papers. They like to egg us on and hear us brag-then tell us it is bad manners!

Every once in a while during their singing, someone would start up the Russian "Red Flag" song. Tune Taunnenbaum. One English dame explained to me the Russians borrowed the tune from "Maryland, my Maryland." I asked a boy what they all thought of Stalin and he answered: "O these boys are all for Joe for King."

Quite a few children on board, being repatriated. There is a little girl of 8 at our table. She can't remember her father of the Welsh guards, and mother, but is excited over the prospect of making the acquaintance of two baby brothers, now nearly three (twins) born in her absence. She wears a shiney little new gold locket, heart-shaped. On one side is a picture of her foster-mother and on the other side will be placed a picture of her "real" mother. The foster-mother is a young childless widow. How could she ever bear to part with this adorable child whom she has reared so beautifully I don't know. Our most decorative passenger is a young girl in her junior year of high school. She thinks she has left her heart and her ambitions (which included Harvard Medical) in America. Her parents in England are adamant that she return, and probably all for the best. But she looks to me like quite a responsibility for somebody-however a pleasant one. I hope her parents have strong constitutions, and don't expect to get back the little British lassie they sent away.

Fifth day out, Sept. 14, 1945
Troop Ship to England
There is a Czechoslovakian woman aboard who married an English-born American. Her mother may or may not be alive in Czechoslovakia, her only son was killed in action with the American army and is buried somewhere in Holland. You hear many stories like that.

Sixth day out, Sept. 15, 1945
Troop Ship to England
Yesterday I specialized on Londoners, who seem to agree that aside from the loss of human life, the war did the city a good turn by cleaning out a lot of the old dwellings. One was afraid rebuilding would lack imagination to retain the "quaint" while installing modern plumbing, one was afraid the rebuilding would be too fast and makeshift, one feared it would be too slow and people would get used to "getting along" till they point where anything would seem good. Sounds as if they would strike a good happy average. But all this from the service boys-no interest from the women in something that surely concerns them.

They diagnose the European situation as quite the opposite to the situation in India in a way. The problem is the failure of the church to persuade the people that there is something vital and interesting and terribly important about religion. They feel the social emphasis has been terribly overdone within the church to the complete neglect of religion, and that if we emphasize religion (they would say Biblical religion probably) first, the social program will fall back into place and be an adjunct not a competitive force to religion within the church. They think the dry other-worldliness of the European churches and social-medical-agricultural emphasis of e.g. Dr. Wiser (without relating that approach directly to Christianity) are equally disastrous. I think he has a most sane view.

I got out my camera this morning and started taking pictures. Immediately I had a whole new set of friends. One man has been in the British army twelve years and has pictures of every part of it. He is a registered nurse. When his term of enlistment was over, or practically over, he got married and acquired a house and baby. Right then the war broke out, and he has scarcely been home since. He has a pair of Trinidad turtles he is taking home to his little girl, who will be starting school this fall. He carries along equipment to develop his own films, and also colors the pictures on the spot, so later he can have slides made and tint them authentically. I think his family will be glad to have him home.