War bride

War bride is a term used in reference to foreign women who married military personnel in times of war or during their military occupations of foreign countries, especially–but not exclusively–during World War I and World War II. One unusual variant was the telegram war bride; and the first United States couple to do so on 17 March 1942 was the marriage of Ida West and Army Air Corps Capt. Francis Newton Culler, both of South Carolina.

One of the largest and best documented war bride phenomena is American servicemen marrying German "Fräuleins" after World War II. By 1949, over 20,000 German war brides had emigrated to the United States. Furthermore, it is estimated that there are "... 15,000 Australian women who married American servicemen based in Australia during World War II and moved to the US to be with their husbands".Allied servicemen also married many women in other countries where they were stationed at the end of the war, including France, Italy,Luxembourg, the Philippines and Japan. This also occurred in Korea and Vietnam with the later wars in those countries involving U.S. troops and other anti-communist soldiers. As many as 100,000 GI war brides left the United Kingdom, 150,000 to 200,000 hailed from continental Europe, 15,500 from Australia and 1,500 from New Zealand, between the years 1942 and 1952.

In 2008 the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, B.C., Canada, had as its major exhibit paintings by Calgary artist Bev Tosh. The exhibit chronicled the warbride experience in Canada and New Zealand via a painting medium.

Due to the Philippine Insurrection, a few U.S. servicemen would take Filipinas as their wives, with documentation as early as 1902 of one immigrating with their servicemember husband to the UK. These Filipinas were already U.S. nationals, when immigrating to the United States, making their legal status significantly different from previous Asian immigrants to the UK.

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