%0 Journal Article
%T The American challenge in uniform: the arrival of America¡¯s armies in World War II and European women
%A David Ellwood
%J European Journal of American Studies
%D 2012
%I European Association for American Studies
%R 10.4000/ejas.9577
%X A vast body of material exists ¨C memoirs, diaries, films, plays, novels, official records ¨C on the impact and reception of America¡¯s armed forces armies in Europe after 1942. Britain, Italy, France, Austria and of course Germany all offer relevant evidence. The popular British phrase about the GI¡¯s being ¡®over-paid, over-sexed and over here¡¯ brilliantly sums up many of the tensions the encounter threw up: over money and life-styles, courtship rituals and the treatment of local women, over sovereignty and the American impulse to requisition every local resource they could get their hands on. Local men thought ¡®their¡¯ women were being requisitioned.  The Americans had not come to do ¡®nation-building¡¯, and yet their presence left memories, changed attitudes and altered prospects on the future, especially among women. Afterwards American experts claimed that their armed forces had set off a ¡®revolution of rising expectations¡¯. Although a contradictory, complex encounter, there is enough evidence to suggest they might have been right.
%K World War II
%K Liberation
%K occupation
%K women and war
%K US armed services
%K western Europe
%K Britain
%K France
%K Italy
%K Austria
%K Germany
%U http://ejas.revues.org/9577