UCIS Central Calendar

A presentation on the culture shock experienced alike by the American troops stationed in the UK during World War II and their British hosts. Join us for an this interesting and often humorous presentation on the mutual culture shock experienced by both Britons and the American servicemen stationed in the UK during the Second World War. American troops started arriving in Britain as early as January 1942, less than two months after the US entered the War following the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. By the Spring of 1944, the Americans comprised the vast majority of the nearly 1.5 million foreign troops posted in Britain in preparation for the D-Day invasions in France. Up until this time, relatively few Britons had encountered or engaged with Americans to any great degree, gaining their impressions of the US and American culture largely from legends of the Old West and the movies. Similarly, many of the American soldiers were young men from small towns who had not previously traveled abroad. We'll explore how the shared quest for victory and the wartime encounter, in spite of cultural difference that were sometimes experienced as puzzling, and occasionally as abrading or even shocking, ultimately reshaped mutual assumptions and cemented the 'special relationship,' first forged among soldiers in the trenches of a previous war, between these two nations and which has endured to the present day. This event includes light British and American refreshments of the 1940s wartime era (served in the Croghan-Schenley Room). This event includes light British and American refreshments of the 1940s wartime era. The presentation is given in conjunction with Britsburgh (British-American Connections, Pittsburgh) by Kim Szczypinski. Kim is Study Abroad Coordinator at Duquesne University, where she earned a Masters in European History and for whom she has lead and taught study tours abroad about the First World War. She is on Britsburgh’s Board of Directors and Chairs the English Nationality Room Committee.