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THE YANKS ARE COMING - REVIEW - Book review of Harry Bioletti's.The Yanks Are Coming. Review © Darcy Waters 2003
During World War Two an enormous amount of work went into constructing defences to defend us from invasion. The enemy never invaded. And yet there was an invasion of a different kind. An invasion of some of the Allied forces from the United States that were fighting in the Pacific Theatre. Most New Zealanders never knew a thing until they had arrived although camps were constructed at a rapid speed to accommodate them, often barely completed as the first troops arrived at them, as well as stores and hospital facilities. Harry Bioletti reveals to us about the extent of this friendly invasion and the effects that it has had on our nation. He looks at it from both the New Zealand and Yanks perspectives as well as telling us about some of the exploits of various people at the time. The cultures of the Yanks and New Zealanders were considerably different, In New Zealand pubs shut at 6pm, No Sunday trading, low prices compared to the States. New Zealand was not quite what they expected. And yet from Yank soldiers falling in love and marrying New Zealanders, to an American Radio Services radio station, to dances at halls and cabarets, the Yank invasion had an immediate impact as well as a lasting one through the contact of the two cultures. The Yanks Are Coming looks at the cultural differences, interactions and influences while at the same time explaining to us what forces visited and stayed where as well as what was involved behind the scenes preparing the Yank soldiers for sending forward to the combat zones.
Harry
Bioletti has managed to cover an aspect of our nation's heritage
that today's younger generation has no inkling of. He has written
it in such a way that it is interesting. I have been reading it
- even taking it to work to read during
© Darcy Waters 2003
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© copyright Darcy Waters 1999-2003 |
