YANKS IN ENGLAND

(The following from Lael Laird, TIME correspondent in London, tells how U.S. soldiers in England are getting on.)

All over England this week American doughboys looked in the wrong direction for traffic. Tall Americans stooped in the low-ceilinged Rose and Crowns, Red Lions, Crown and Anchors, Bull and Bushes. Firm-handed, fast-driving khaki-clad chauffeurs in khaki-painted jeeps, trucks, station wagons and staff cars, roller-coasted around the sharply winding British roads.

All over green, damp, abundant, tiny England floors went down, tents went up, cloistered gardens were opened and leisurely old houses creaked alive to new occupants, and the tea hour was no longer sacred. U.S. soldiers were forbidden to buy out defenseless towns, were not allowed to buy candy and other supplies which are plentiful at their own post exchanges. The polite, well-behaved A.E.F. surprised the Hollywood-impressioned Britons.

Old Lush. No place can be taken as typical in England--it is all too new --but here is a firsthand picture of a Bomber Command unit. Quarters are in a hundreds -of -years -old. many-roomed, thick, crenelated-walled home and on the large, lush grounds of a big estate occupied since 1939 by the R.A.F. Privates are encamped in their own U.S. wooden-floored tents for the summer, officers in the mansion's outsize, fireplaced, tinted-plaster bedrooms complete with stone washbasins and large, white crockery commodes. Officers who tended to laugh at the British Army's batman system are now considering adopting it, since it is inefficient that an officer should spend time carting himself hot water for washing. They are discovering that the antiquated, inadequate plumbing and general layout of British houses were designed for excess domestic manpower which is no longer available.

WAAFs originally did all table-waiting, still do office-girl chores. Men and officers like the WAAFs, who, on the average, are small, rounded, unaffected and friendly and clump busily around in flat shoes, hideous grey cotton stockings and broad smiles. Personnel officers have noted that the morale is better on posts which have uniformed girls, but when the WAAFs were waiting on table the doughboys showed a tendency to call them Sugar, Honey, and wisecrack with them as with waitresses of the world, which is not considered proper treatment for lady troops. Middleaged, local domestics are now doing most of the work; they have learned not to shine American buttons, which are lacquered and ruined by polish.

The station is under the direct command of energetic Bomber Chief General Ira Eaker. Reveille is sounded at 7 o'clock by Bugler Thomas Pomparelli from New York, who is waked up by a $1.98 alarm clock. Working day is from 8:30 to 5:30, seven days a week, with duties being the "same as at home" except for unmentionable preparations for the future. An hour and a half is taken up with a choice of baseball, tennis, swimming, volley ball, outdoor badminton and even croquet. Dinner is at 7, with few complaints, as Americans are on double British rations, plus extra from home. British cooks are obligingly learning to cook for the U.S. taste--to make coleslaw instead of limp boiled cabbage, serve toast warm, use seasoning all around. Even the coffee has improved.

Officers. After dinner officers are nominally free, though many work some evenings. They wander from the long, polished-floored, white-walled dining hall to the glassed-in porch furnished with comfortable wicker chairs and tables with magazines, and they read or write, play with a bulldog puppy named Winston Churchill or go out on the stone porch to play ping-pong with WAAFs. Some stroll out on the thick, ruglike lawn and bang croquet balls inexpertly through wickets, using golf terms because they do not know croquet nomenclature. Officers are flooded with local invitations. Many country Britons write, mentioning lovely gardens, usually ending up offering: "Make this your home while you are here." Officers have picked up, and like, the afternoon-tea habit. They are fluently using general slang such as "Browned off," "Good show," "I take a very poor view of that," say petrol for gas, use R.A.F. expressions like "gen" for general information, make constant use of "actually." Many visit R.A.F. stations. They greatly admire the fighter, coastal and bomber commands.

Officers' enthusiasms: the amazing antiquity of local sights, the British greener-than-green landscape, outsize flowers, quaint and lovely villages, thick woolen blankets, polite policemen. Their chief beefs: "It's not home," warm beer, lack of transportation, too much rain.

Enlisted Men. After dinner trim, healthy-looking boys flood through the high gate of the estate's massive stone wall, soft-shoe it down narrow sidewalks and attend the local pay-as-you-enter dances--the Town Hall or rest center--pick up local girls and stroll through the town park. Soldiers crowd local movie houses, though better and newer pictures are usually showing in the recreation building on the estate. But there is an agreement with British distributors that no civilian can see camp movies and boys cannot take girls. With natives or officers, all are amazingly polite, but when by themselves, their gripes snowball.

Squawks. "It's not home," no news, girls ("don't stack up beside our girls"). The most judicious and fair-minded of the boys I talked to in this town, who came from St. Louis, said: "They don't have the proper things, like silk stockings. It's not the people anyway, it's the system." One boy told me with genuine incredulity: "You know what they teach kids in this country? They teach them that England won the last war! Can you beat that? It's a fact. A couple of little kids told me so themselves." When faced with the unreasonableness of their squawks, the boys will concede: the R.A.F. has two pretty good planes, the Land Army girls do a wonderful job, the scenery's the nuts.

All the boys are Second-Front-minded. Said a Detroiter, "I'm going to Poland to find my grandmother and I'm going this year." Discipline is so good that there is little trouble. Boys are much politer and more serious than in the last war.

London presents a far happier picture of well-contented men. Officers are inundated with posh invitations in their spare time. Said one, after dining with several titles: "Aren't there any plain people around here?" A most touching letter from a North England elderly widowed miner offered "to share my bed with a Pittsburgh miner." When the London Daily Express printed a box: Take an American Soldier Home to Tea on July 4th, the friendly British queued at headquarters extending invitations, expecting soldiers.

The Red Cross George Washington Club--for enlisted men and guests only --is the biggest morale booster. This attractive remodeled hotel has been packed since its opening. Boys use the big lounge, crowd four beds to a room every weekend, fill barbershop, showers, game room, attend gala Saturday night dances with Red Cross-invited WAAFs, WRENs, ETATs, get messages, mail, write names on little flags to stick into their home base on a special map of the U.S. (so that local boys can get together), get free tickets, sign up for popular sightseeing tours, eat doughnuts and waffles, drink real coffee, cokes, no liquor.

Relations between U.S. and British and other Allied forces are most excellent in London. They amiably crowd the same corner pubs, complain about prices at the Savoy and Ritz, jostle each other in Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. In Hyde Park, baseball and softball games are now an evening institution. British civilians gather enthusiastically, but do not understand the game and cheer in the wrong places.

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