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A friend of our family, Carol, worked for a dry-cleaners (Re-Vi-Ve) in Hull during the war. One of her jobs was to check the pockets of garments before they were cleaned. A poem was found in the pocket of an American Soldier’s jacket in 1944 which is reproduced here.
Carol did not care much for many of the sentiments expressed in this poem so decided to respond with her own poem. Both poems were carefully returned to the pocket of the American Soldier when he came to collect his jacket. We would have loved to see his face when he found Carol’s poem!

American Soldiers Poem

That’s England

Where the heavenly breeze whips through the trees,
And you walk through mud right up to your knees,
And the sun doesn’t shine, and the rain flows free,
And the fog is so thick you can hardly see — THAT’S ENGLAND!

Where you live on Brussels sprouts and Spam
And the powered eggs aren’t worth a damn,
Where in the town you can get fish and spuds
And drown the taste in a must of suds — THAT’S ENGLAND!

You hold your nose and you gulp it down,
It hits our stomach and then you frown,
For it burns your tongue, makes your throat feel queer,
It’s rightly named ‘bitter’ for it sure isn’t beer — THAT’S ENGLAND!

Where the prices are high and ever so long,
And the poor G.I.’s are always wrong,
Where you get watered down scotch at four bits a snort,
And those English dames can’t stand a short — THAT’S ENGLAND!

And those pitch dark nights when you stay our late,
It’s so bloody dark you can’t navigate,
There’s no transportation, you have to hike
And get your tail knocked with a bloody bike — THAT’S ENGLAND!

Where most of the girls are blonde and bold,
And think every Yank’s pockets are lined with gold.
There’s the Piccadilly Command with painted allure,
Steer clear of them, you’ll get burnt for sure — THAT’S ENGLAND!

This Isle ain’t worth saving, I don’t think,
Cut loose the balloons and let the damn thing sink.
I’m not complaining but I’ll have you to know,
Life is rougher than HELL in the E.T.O. (European Theatre of Operations)
-THAT’S ENGLAND!

OOOOOOOOOOOO

Carol’s Reply!

THIS ENGLAND!

The rain you are so scornful of, this fog at which you sneer,
Just modify our climate, and we’d rather have it here.
We may not have your sunshine, neither do wild blizzards blow,
No, I guess our weather is like our folk, temperate and slow.

We may not have fried chicken and we miss our roasted ham,
But we would remind you, ‘twas America who sent the Spam.
The food may not be good, but we ask you not to forget,
We are living on hard rations for a war we are fighting yet.

And our beer may be too strong for you, it was brewed for MEN,
Men with guts, who take hard knocks and get up to fight again.
You scoff at the name of ‘Bitter’ — we drink a bitter brew,
When we stood alone against the foe….where then were YOU?

As for the Piccadilly Command, you have only yourselves to blame,
The too wise guy out on the make usually strikes a hard-boiled dame.
If a girl is decent you try to make her anew,
You know American Soldiers — we owe the ‘quads’ to you.

There are lots of things YOU do for which we do not care,
But we are too polite to mention them, so we just grin and bear.
Your boastfulness, scorn of our land and somewhat rough horseplay,
Intolerance of coloured folk, we say ‘It’s only just their way’.

This island of ours isn’t worth saving you don’t think,
You’d cut ballast; let her go, let the damned thing sink.
I wonder, would Russia agree, fighting through mud and snow,
Would Norway, France, Holland and Belgium say ‘Let Britain Go’.

You may be important in your little sphere,
But you merely look small-minded when you come over here.
You grumble at the petty things we take in our stride,
You’re upset by Spam and Blackouts, while our men die by your side.

As for your opinion of England. We do not give a damn,
Our concern is for the welfare of every fighting man.
Our pride is in our nation, not in drinking beer,
We accept wartime discomforts of which you openly sneer.

As for the American Soldier,
Well, I’m mighty proud to say,
I prefer a British Tommy
To a Yankee ANY DAY!!!!

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