Ship of Brides or Ship of Whores
The contradictory images of war brides as both “brides” and “whores” were reinforced by the descriptions of the ships in which they traveled that appeared in the press. The Taranaki Herald announced the docking of a “Bride Ship” in Auckland in April 1946 when the Athlone Castle arrived with 700 women aboard.22 Earlier that year, the birth of a baby on board SS Rangitata as it entered Auckland's Waitemata Harbour earned it the label of “Stork Ship.”23 The Melbourne Age greeted the arrival of the same ship with the provocative headline “Wives, Wires and Bananas,” summing up the excitement on board Rangitata as war brides sampled bananas for the first time since the war had begun and queued at the radio office on board to send cables (wires) to their husbands waiting ashore.24 Two ships that arrived in Melbourne simultaneously en route from Britain were nicknamed the “Mother Ship” and the “Father Ship” by the Age because many of the soldier husbands were on the one while their war brides and infant children were on the other.25 These designations clearly emphasized the married and domestic nature of the war-bride intake and promulgated the notion that their future role in society was as wives and mothers.
Juxtaposed with representations of war brides' domestic and maternal roles were images of them as wayward or complaining women. These less desirable connotations were conveyed by derogatory names assigned to some ships typified by them dubbing the Marine Falcon the “SS Floating Flophouse."''1' The Tyndareus, with an ample complement of children on board, had been called a “Stork Ship" but was also dubbed the “Hell Ship" by the press whose warbride interviewees reported the lack of adequate facilities on the long journey.27 The Australian high commissioner E.
J. Williams wrote to London that on board the Stirling Castle, sleeping arrangements were cramped, there was a lack of quiet spaces for children to rest, shortages of basic medical supplies, severe outbreaks of measles, prickly heat in infants, one death from tubercular meningitis and another from enteritis, from which, he wrote, “nearly all the children were suffering."28 Pressure for space meant that the swimming pool on the Athlone Castle was converted into dormitories and, on the Dunbar Castle, returning servicemen slept on tables in the dining room to allow the cabin space to be occupied by war brides and children.29 The upshot was that cabin space could not be allocated to couples.30 As far as possible, therefore, married couples were required to travel on separate ships. When they were on the same ship, they were confined to separate decks and separate cabins. Rank brought privilege, allowing officers' wives to socialize with their husbands on board but keeping wives of “other ranks" separated from theirs, sparking complaints of class discrimination. A war bride disembarking from the Rangitata in January 1946 said, “I thought we had left snobbery behind when we left England, but it was pretty obvious on this ship."31While fraternization with spouses may have been restricted on board some ships, socializing was inevitable and indeed encouraged on many voyages. Dances, concerts, race meetings, and beauty contests all featured as entertainments that staved off boredom on the six- to eight-week voyage. They also afforded ample opportunity for flirtatious behavior and sexual relationships. Sheila Kirkwood described with some relish the clapping and cheering that ensued when she and Duncan, a returning soldier with whom she spent a lot of time on the journey out, collapsed in a heap on the dance floor when the ship rolled. She also described in detail the sexually charged atmosphere on board when King Neptune and his retinue presided at the “crossing the line [of the Equator]" carnival.
In the tropical atmosphere, Neptune's court handed down “sentences" for “misdemeanors" and women dressed in swimwear were doused with flour and sprayed with water, slipping and sliding on greased deck boards to the uproarious applause of servicemen and crew.32 Episodes and events such as these fuelled gossip and were the staple diet of the onboard magazines that capitalized on intimate or embarrassing incidents to make jokes. Relationships ranged from flirting, casual sex, and intimate shipboard romances for the duration of the voyage through to more commercial arrangements made in organized brothels where women traded sexual favors for cigarettes and alcohol. Unsurprisingly, these activities were reported back to New Zealand, contributing to an image of “bride” ships as “brothel” ships.Evidence that promiscuous behavior was a reality among some war brides, male passengers, and crew was reported in New Zealand ahead of the Rangitiki’s arrival in July 1946 and it became known as the “Brothel Ship.”33 A romantic short story in a troopship magazine published on board the Stirling Castle featured an illicit affair between a war bride bound for New Zealand and a married Australian returning serviceman.34 Examples of fiancees of New Zealand servicemen jumping ship lent an air of credibility to the stories of war brides as undependable and, by extension, undesirable new residents. They were viewed as emotionally fickle and opportunistic—opportunistic in having married a New Zealander in the first instance and fickle in reneging on their commitment in the second. A witness in a divorce case told the court that the war bride “seemed not to care about the place [New Zealand] and was just having a holiday at his [the serviceman’s] expense, I think.”35
Socializing between the sexes on board led to reports of inappropriate behavior and the media capitalized on cases of sexual liaisons, both fictional and real. Thus, while war brides were welcomed as wives, mothers, and homemakers and were expected to conform and assimilate into New Zealand society as seamlessly as possible, they were viewed as foreign and different, even exotic, and often as immoral, misusing the freedom of the long voyage for sexual exploits. “Bride” and “brothel” ships, therefore, coexisted in the popular imagination and complicated the reactions of New Zealanders to the arrival of the brides. War brides were aware of the mixed reaction they evoked, and to deflect bad publicity, they banded together and denied all knowledge of misbehavior by fellow passengers on the journey. Brides of all nationalities arriving in New Zealand closed ranks to protect their joint image, and, later, formed clubs, one of the objects of which was to bolster each other against such sentiments.36