The Americans posted to Montrose in 1918 who left with Scottish brides

Thirteen women from the town married US airmen and started a new life abroad, writes Alison Campsie

The Great War caused such horror but amid the darkness there was also love.

As Armistice Day passed, a group of women from the north east town of Montrose looked to a future far away and started to pack for their voyage to America to be reunited with their new husbands.

Thirteen women from the town had met and married American airmen who had been posted to the town’s airfield with the 138th Aero Squadron in May 1918.

The airmen were in the town for just three months but made a deep impression. American cultural nights were put on in the town and relationships quickly blossomed.

The Montrose Review of 9 August, 1918 reported on the rush of weddings that took place in the town as the airmen prepared to leave for duty on the Western Front.

The article said: “During this week there have been quite a number of military weddings in Montrose.

“The early departure of the United States Air Force from Montrose has been the cause of the briskness of the matrimonial market. Our American cousins have found favour of the eyes of our Scottish lasses.”

Among the American units which arrived in Scotland were the 41st and 138th Aero Squadrons, sent to Montrose in 1918 to train in the use of British aircraft such as the Sopwith Camel.

Montrose had been established as a Royal Flying Corps base in 1913 and had been the home of a series of Reserve Squadrons which trained pilots and ground-crew for the rapidly expanding British air forces.

Dr Dan Patron, of Montrose Air Station Heritage Centre, says the airmen were impressed with the training and facilities at Montrose as well as local life.

“The Americans were less impressed with their accommodation, in a

0 Victoria Bush with her American husband William Beaver

disused flax mill but they seem to have quickly integrated into local society and were soon entertaining the locals with an American concert,” he says.

“They clearly impressed the local girls. In August 1918, when the American Squadrons left Montrose, there were seven weddings to Americans which attracted the attention of the local press. In all, 13 women married Americans they met at Montrose in 1918.

“Such unions are, perhaps, one small happy consequence of a horrific conflict that destroyed so many families.

“The women had only known these men for a short period of time before the men transferred to France. They didn’t come back to Montrose – they went to

America by troopship and the women had to follow on their own.

“This is what I find astonishing.

“All of the 13 brides went to the United States to be with their husbands after the war and settled all over the United States. They kept in touch with each other and their histories have been traced up to their deaths.”

Among the Montrose brides were Victoria Bush, who left for New York in 1919 following her marriage to William Beaver in the town’s St John’s United Free Church. The two eventually settled in Glendale, California.

Another bride, Williamina Duncan, returned to Montrose from her new home in South Dakota with her four children following the death of her husband, Jens Johnsen, in 1927. Two of her children joined the American Army in the Second World War.

● Montrose Air Station Heritage Centre has a project to find surviving descendants of the American weddings, rafmontrose.org uk/

“Such unions are, perhaps, one small happy consequence of a horrific conflict that destroyed so many families”