STRANDED WAR BRIDES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25505, 8 April 1944, Page 3

STRANDED WAR BRIDES

ATTEMPTS TO REACH AMERICA SYDNEY OFFICE BESIEGED (0.C.) SYDNEY, Mar. 24. Several hundred of Australian girls who have married American servicemen have applied to Thomas Cook and Son for passages to the United States. So far few of them have been able to get away from Australia owing to transport difficulties. Many of the girls now in Sydney have travelled from Western Australia, and have been waiting here for six weeks in the hope of obtaining passages. Their husbands have left Australia. either serving in the battle areas in the north, or have returned to the United States. Five Western Australian wives have been in Sydney nine weeks and their money is running low. One of the women is expecting a baby, and said she wants to be with her husband in America before it is born. “We’d go on any sort of a boat,” said one girl. “They could put us down one end with the cattle, if they liked. We could look after ourselves.”

The girls who drop in suddenly on Sydney and besiege the office of Thomas Cook, present a problem in accommodation. It is usual for the staff to telephone 50 numbers before accommodation can be found. Searching for a bed for the bride of an American, the staff of Thomas Cook and Son telephoned 106 hotels and boarding houses in vain. Then a call was made to one house that had been tried before, and the proprietor stretched a point and gave the girl a room.