As we mark the sixtieth anniversary of the ending of World War II there are a number of Brits, mostly in their seventies, who will be feeling a particular sense of gratitude for the people of the United States. They may not be pleased about all aspects of US foreign policy but they would never descend into anti-Americanism. For at an early stage in life they were introduced to the generosity of the American people.

            I am referring to the some three thousand children who were sent for safety to the United States in the summer of 1940 and were adopted for anything up to six years by American families. My brother and I were two of them. In a roundabout way that enforced separation from our own parents was a catalyst for both of us to find expression of our Christian faith in a worldwide work for reconciliation and change.

            In 1940 Britain stood alone against the might of Nazism. The blitzkrieg and the power of attacks from the air were frightening. Even with the miraculous rescue of troops from the beaches of Dunkirk the threat of invasion was very real. Offers to provide safe havens for children flooded in from the Dominions and from the United States. Companies like Kodak and Hoover and Warner Brothers offered to take the children of their sister companies in Britain. Universities like Yale gave generous offers to counterparts at Oxford and Cambridge. Committees were formed in the US to find homes and in the UK to secure escorts and ships. My mother who had grown up in the “troubles” in Ireland and seen her Dublin school occupied by troops and witnessed shooting over her home was so concerned about war that she barged into the offices of shipping companies to find passages for us.

            “See you after the duration” this 8-year-old shouted out blithely as we left, parroting the latest grown-up phrase he had learned. Little did parents know that the separation would last five years just as host families might have been hesitant if they had realized that their offers of homes was to last that long. “See You After the Duration” is indeed the title of a book I have just written about that experience and which has led to my being in touch with some hundred other evacuees.

            For all of us it was the adventure of our lives. Many of us were sustained by a sense of patriotism and even in our preteens felt we were ambassadors. We had to cope with changes of accent, language, food, customs, schooling and then on our return face once again a change of culture. For most indeed the difficulties of readjusting afterwards, after the missed years of family nurture turned out to be far harder for most children than the initial separation.

            The big plus for most of us has been a broadened view of life and possibilities and the relationships with  new families unknown to us when the war started. We have recently had the granddaughter of our Boston host staying with. She is herself a grandmother which reminds us of the passage of time and the depths of family friendships. Her granddaughter recently emailed me from Oregon. She had just read my book and thanked me for introducing her to her great-grandparents.

            The great fear children had in returning home was that they would not recognize their parents and of parents that they would not recognize their children. In many cases that was justified. We walked past our mother on the station platform. There was ground to be made up. It was hard for us to live into the minds of parents who had lived through years of bombing and fire watching and even in the previous months the ‘doodle bugs’ and who jumped at every loud sound. Our army officer father was used to more obedience than we perhaps gave him. Mother and father’s admonitions were met with refrain ‘We don’t do it that way in America.’ ‘We don’t do this, we don’t do that.’ So much so, that America soon became known as ‘We-land.’ In much the same way that in some families a common refrain in those first post-war years was, ‘Before you went to America…’

            Concerned about the deterioration of family relations, our mother arranged that in 1947 we all visited the conference center in Caux, Switzerland which had been set up the year before. There in the perspective of thousands coming to find healing for the hates and hurts of the war we came closer together. Through complete honesty with each other about ourselves the barriers between us were broken down. Our father discovered a new attitude to the people of Africa where he did business while our mother managed through apology to build bridges with Irish Catholics to whom our family had previously been indifferent. Together we found a way to make real our Christian faith and to relate it to the needs of the world.

            So the uprooting in World War II, difficult as it may have been, was a springboard to a life commitment of Christian service.

Articles Archive of Michael Henderson