A Welcome to Britain was created in 1943 it was a joint collaboration between the
British Ministry of Information and the US War Office. The film was
created because the Allies were planning the invasion of occupied Europe and
envisioned a large influx of US troops arriving in the UK.
Now to ensure good relations they created this film
to accommodate some of the strange cultural differences
that British people might experience meeting Americans for the first time
and Americans might experience meeting British people for the first time.
Next to winning the war perhaps the most important matter on this Earth today is
the friendly relationship between allied nations. This picture is a
generous gesture toward that end. Will you tell us about
it General? I'm not speaking for myself i'm speaking
to the entire British army. This picture is a gift from us to
you and is an attempt to show you a little
what England is about. We want to make you feel at home here.
This is the fifth year of the war, we have all been in it,
the army, the navy, the air force, and every man woman and child
in this country... Yeah i'm in it. Well you know i'm just the guy to show
you around England, sure i know all about it, why shouldn't i
i've been here three weeks. Well first thing i think we ought to take a
look at is...
...an English pub
The film was presented by the Hollywood film actor Burgess Meredith
He was known to audiences as a time for films like
Of Mice and Men in 1939, but we as modern audiences probably know him
better for being Rocky's trainer in the Rocky films and the Penguin in the
Batman TV series. Burgess Meredith had enlisted in the
US Army Air Forces in 1942 and rose to the rank of captain though
he didn't see combat. In 1943 he transferred to the u.s war
office where he was employed making films like
A Welcome to Britain for training purposes and other
instructive uses. The film would have been shown to US forces
as they arrived in Britain; it was one of a number of training
materials that had been produced to ease cultural relations between the British
and the Americans. One of the benefits of the film was it
was more engaging than some of the written materials that had already been
produced and there wasn't a high uptake in this kind of
cultural familiarization training that already happened previously.
A number of British newspapers got the chance to see the film as a preview
and wrote rave reviews. The Daily Mail was so fond of it it even pushed for
a public release to the general public, but it was ultimately only ever used as
a training film. For Americans traveling to Britain it
would have been the first time that many of them had ever traveled abroad
or even out of their home state in a lot of cases.
For the British people as well it would have been the first time that they were
encountering Americans outside of the cinema
particularly in rural areas of Norfolk and Suffolk where there was a heavy
concentration of US army air forces troops
it would have seemed like Hollywood had descended on them, and in fact some of
the people serving like Burgess Meredith and Clark Gable
were Hollywood stars themselves.
Come on. Oh wait before we go in let me tell you
a little about an English pub. It's not like a saloon it's more like a
club, a club for men and women who haven't a
great deal of money and who don't drink for the sake of
drinking but for the company now these pubs are open for a couple of
hours in the middle of the day and then again in the early evening and
men and women after their days work and they work
long and hard hours come in for a bitter a mile
oh that's beer to you and incidentally the beer isn't cold in England, no they
don't like it cold and they haven't any ice see so if you
like beer you better like it warm. These same people have been coming into
the same pub for many years; my grandfathers and their
great grandfathers came in before. This particular pub for instance was
founded about the time that our country was founded.
So well come on take a look there you are you see that'll give you a
general idea. The arrival of the Americans was often
heralded as a friendly invasion of the UK
but the film touches on some of the areas where relations were a little more
contentious. Race relations was one of the areas of
contention between British people and American forces
and there's an interesting moment in the film where Burgess Meredith and a black
GI are invited to dinner by a middle-aged
lady getting off the train, then the film rather awkwardly justifies
segregation and American racism, which is not so deftly handled.
Well goodbye, Goodbye it's been very nice meeting you
Funny you should come from Birmingham too isn't it
If you come to my Birmingham, you must come to my home and have a cup of tea with me,
both of you. Thank you, goodbye and good luck.
Bye-bye. Well where you going? Well i think i'll get some cigarettes
i'm short too. Well i'll get some. Good.
Now look men, you heard that conversation. That's not unusual here, it's the sort of
thing that happens quite a lot. Now let's be
frank about it, there are coloured soldiers as well as
white here, and there are less social restrictions in this country
Just what you heard, an English woman asking a coloured boy to tea; she was
polite about it and he was polite about it. Now
look that might not happen at home but the
the point is we're not at home, and the point is too
if we bring a lot of prejudices here, what are we going to do about it.
Around 10% of the US force serving in Britain
was black. The u.s armed forces during the second world war
were segregated along the lines of color. Now in the us
racial prejudice was to an extent the norm
in southern states in particular Jim Crow law was in place,
which saw black people treated very differently along racial lines to their
white counterparts. This was not the case in britain which
was a largely homogenous white nation. Around 11,000 black Americans arrived in
Britain by the autumn of 1942; they effectively doubled the black
population of britain in a matter of months. After Burgess
Meredith explains to the camera that respectful treatment of black GIs was
not uncommon in Britain, he then happens upon john c lee who is
commander of the us army's services of supply
a force that was largely black so do you know who that is
that's general lee head of the services of supplies
you know that he's got a lot of colored troops under him and they're doing a big
job over here and i happen to know that general lee
comes from kansas and that his family fought for the confederacy
let's go and see what he says about it when
and so we were wondering how the general felt about
him and me america has promised the negril citizenship
and a fair chance to make the best of himself now john c
lee is an interesting figure to include in the film because the role he
plays awkwardly justifies by our standards why the us forces treat
their black gis the way they do but he held those uncommon beliefs that were
against segregation and was one of the few people in the u.s
armed forces to do so the scene with the black gi in a welcome
to britain is one of the most written about
sequences of the whole film a number of historians including those
interested in black history and britain have written on this specific
scene but what is interesting is we don't know the name
of the black gi at the center of it this person
we haven't been able to identify or hasn't been identified yet
this is interesting because there are a multitude of white faces that appear in
the film who we can list the white names have
been recorded but we don't know who this mysterious
black gi from birmingham alabama allegedly
is
another area of contention was to do with venereal disease
there's another scene in the film where burgess meredith x is a club and
encounters a prostitute in london now she's not explicitly
referred to as a prostitute but the line that he says mind your step
is an explicit reference to venereal disease and american propaganda that
suggested that british prostitutes were a danger
in that way to american servicemen in britain hello
darling you like my little dog yes no
and while we're on that subject i'd like to give you one of them lectures
hello soldier coming my way no maybe you've heard all kinds of stories
about this i don't know whether they're true or not because i don't know what
stories you've heard but the situation has gotten pretty bad
and so it says here watch your step you know there's been lots of jokes on
this subject just make sure the joke isn't on you
yes you'll find other things to do except this
on the whole relationships between british civilians and american personnel
were generally good and films like a welcome to britain helped to overcome
german propaganda which was designed to so discord between the two nations
my personal favorite moment of the film touches on that quintessentially british
stereotype of how we all drink tea all the time
and indeed burgess meredith is given a cup of tea
at a train station of all places and advises the americans that wherever you
go in britain there's tea on offer and that the british drink it like the
americans drink coke over there have a cup of tea will you oh
thank you very much do you have an american cigarette oh thank you very
much
thank you go i'll bring this right back right there
wherever you go t no the english drink tea
two three times a day they drink it like we drink cokes back in the states
hello sergey get going you're going what are you talking about
listen i'm very busy i'm making a picture i got orders
i don't know what you got but it says here that
private aj went on to the table anyway there's a lot of numbers and stuff
then you'll proceed without delay on or about
and this is about from here to where you want it
get going i haven't told them how long it takes for mail to get here at first
sometimes it takes six or eight weeks well they are look fellas don't get the
idea that the folks at home aren't riding the mail catch up within they'll
all come at once you tell you they can't do this to me
hey wait uh hey i haven't told them on your way jim come
sorry i can't finish the picture that's up to you
thanks so much for watching and welcome to britain with me we hoped you enjoyed
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