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Don McDouall was evacuated from London during World War II when he was five years old. He was sent to the small country village of East Hanney to live with Grans and Grampy at a house called Tamarisk. He now lives in Australia.
About two miles up the road towards Wantage, at a place called Grove the Americans had taken over the RAF airstrip. It became a very large complex. There were literally hundreds of aeroplane's there from about 1943 to just after the end of the war in 1945.
Stationed at this large sprawling aerodrome were American airforce and army personal. It was to be the first time I had seen a real live black man as many personal were American Negroes. America at that time had segregated forces.
I cannot recall if black and white Yanks worked together but they didn't do any of their playing together. Certain public houses in the village were out of bounds to 'Yankee' whites and other pubs were likewise out of bounds to 'Yankee' blacks as were certain other types of entertainment.
The local dance hall was the Hut. The dance hall was out of bounds at times to white yanks. So black yanks were able to go to dances there. But of course there was nothing to stop personal of other allied armies turning up to dances in this same Hut venue. So it was common to see Canadians, Free French, Free Polish plus the British three services at any of these local dances. There was also a smattering of Aussies and Kiwi's.
Fights were quite a common Saturday night occurrence. Such fights sometimes got very nasty. Especially so when the Yankee military police turned up in their jeeps along with White helmets and big dangling revolvers in leather holsters and white belt's. The American police didn't seem to care much who they hit with their long batons.
English dancing, up until the entry of the Yanks into the Hanney area, had been dances such as the Waltz, the Foxtrot, the Quickstep and sometimes the Tango. There were dances even us kids could all join in like the 'Hokey Kokey' and 'Knees Up Mother Brown'.
The Yanks brought with them their 'Jittabugging'. The American Negroes were great at this form of dancing. Such crazy dancing made everyone just stand around and gawk. There was many a teenage girl who was pulled from the dance floor by an irate father or brother for showing everyone their legs
'Right up to their bums!' as I heard one very irate father say.
The Americans were very good to all the kids, 'Got any gum chum?' was now heard everywhere. They gave kids parties and put on shows for the village kids. One such memorable party was a Christmas party in 1943 put on by the Yanks for all the kids living in East and West Hanney. It was held in the Hut.
The special event was given by members of Company D of the 342nd Engineers, USA Army. Each participating child received a copy of the New Testament. A small brown covered volume with the United States flag on it.
But the Yanks did cause a lot of friction at times in the villages, especially between boyfriend and girlfriend and to a certain extent husband and wife.
At the time most of the able bodied local men between eighteen and forty-five years of age were in the forces and most of them were overseas. This state of affairs left a huge glut of young, and not so young, women twiddling more then their thumbs!
Then there was the fact that an American private serviceman's pay at the time equated to about the same as a British captains pay. Reality was that everybody was very aware that the Yanks had access to material accoutrements that the British people could only dream about, cigarettes, confectionery and nylons. Such worldly wealth turned many an English girls head.
The Yanks of course just lived for the day. You couldn't blame them for that. Many were crew members of the planes that perhaps bombed or at least flew over a very hostile Europe nightly. Many of these aeroplane's never returned. So a night in the arms of some gorgeous young English girl was the ultimate goal of such young men.
I had got into the habit of hanging around the front of The Black Horse pub as did many other boys and girls. The pub would on most nights be packed out, mainly with servicemen looking for a drink. Beer was in very short supply so it was quite common for a pub to run dry. When this happened it must of been very lucrative for the publican as spirits and wines were consumed in vast quantities.
Kids would find the odd coin or a half burnt cigarette, especially after fights. Fag ends were a good source of revenue because we could sell them to the old village blokes who couldn't afford to buy tobacco. I kept Grampy in much of his 'baccy'.
Sometimes the remains of a packet of Smiths potato crisps were grabbed off the table before the owner realised what was happening. It was around this pub that I found most of my food in the late months of 1944. The food was mainly what Yank soldiers had discarded.
A very popular pastime in the village at the time was what we called Tracking. A selected girl and her Yank boyfriend were given a head start and then we would track them, to where they went in the fields.
A few of us who were good trackers would locate the two lovers. We would wait until both man and girl were lost in their lust for each other! Once having achieved this we would all crawl through the long grass to where the lovemaking was taking place and silently we would watch what was going on for a while. Then some kid would yell out obscenities or make some rude noises and then we would all then run for our lives!
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