An Australian soldier and a local woman overlook the River Nith at Dumfries, Scotland.
The mass movement of troops in wartime has profoundly affected the love lives of countless Australians. Over 12,000 Australian soldiers married while serving overseas during the First World War (1914–18) and they sponsored the passage of some 18,000 women and children to Australia at war’s end. Australian airmen, participating in the Empire Air Training scheme during the Second World War (1939–45), meanwhile, brought 4,027 wives and 878 fiancées to Australia in 1948. Fifteen thousand Australian women, in turn, left our shores in the postwar years—two thirds for the United States.
ON LOAN COURTESY OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL ART26224
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