Rich Relations: The American Occupation of Britain, 1942-1945.

• Author: Mitgang, Herbert

Churchill was right. Americans and Britons did have a special relationship--thousands of them between English women and American servicemen

Once when I was having dinner with Studs Terkel, he mentioned that he had interviewed more than 100 people for an oral history of World War II, but was at a loss for a title. I immediately suggested "The Good War," saying it was the way I and others thought about our generation's war, as compared to the aimless 10-year Vietnam War. After generously crediting me for the title of his book, which received the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, the inimitable Studs wrote: "It is a phrase that has been frequently voiced by men of his and my generation, to distinguish the war from other wars, declared and undeclared. Quotation marks have been added, not as a matter of caprice or editorial comment, but simply because the adjective `good' mated to the noun `war' is so incongruous."

His wisdom came to mind while reading Rich Relations, a highly original book by David Reynolds about a largely unexamined aspect of World War II: the interaction between the Americans stationed in England and the British. Reynolds, one of Britain's leading historians, specializes in studies of Anglo-American relations, and his knowledge shows. He subtitles his new book "The American Occupation of Britain, 1942-1945." The only fault I find with the subtitle is that the word occupation doesn't have quotation marks around it. There are, after all, occupations and "Occupations." The Nazi occupation of conquered Europe systematically led its victims to the gas chambers of Auschwitz; the American "Occupation" of Britain led to victory over tyranny.

Reynolds borrows the word from a comment made by George Orwell in December 1943. "It is difficult to go anywhere in London," Orwell said, "without having the feeling that Britain is now Occupied Territory. The general consensus of opinion seems to be that the only American soldiers with decent manners are the Negroes."

Fortunately, Reynolds looks beyond Orwell's stereotype of the loutish American. He writes that the three million Americans who passed through Britain on the way to battle each had experiences as singular as their own personalities. The cliche went that the Americans were "oversexed, overpaid, overfed, and over here." Less familiar was the Yank riposte that the British Tommy was "undersexed, underpaid, under fed, and under Eisenhower." But behind the wisecracks was a plain truth: The...