WWII Gay G.I.s recounts tale of losing their Lovers
Excerpt from the book Coming out under fire The history of gay Men and Women in World War Two: Combat soldiers often responded to each otherâs personal losses with the deepest respect and understanding, allowing gay GIs to express openly their grief over the death of boyfriends or lovers.Â
Jim Warrenâs boyfriend was hit while trying to knock out a machine-gun nest on Saipan. âThey brought him back,â Warren recalled, âand he was at the point of death. He was bleeding. He had been hit about three or four times. I stood there and he looked up at me and I looked down at him and he said, âWell, Jim, we didnât make it, did we.â And tears were just rolling down my cheeks. I donât know when Iâve ever felt such a lump and such a waste. And he kind of gave me a boyish crooked grin and just said, âWell, maybe next time.â And I said, âIâm going to miss you. And Iâll see your mother.â There were people standing around, maybe seven or eight people standing there, and I was there touching his hand and we were talking. Somebody said later, âYou were pretty good friends,â because I had been openly crying and most people donât do this. I said, âYes, we were quite good friends.â And nobody ever said anything. I guess as long as I supposedly upheld my end of the bargain, everything was all right.â
Ben Small was even less able to control himself when his boyfriend was killed in the Philippines. But he, too, was surprised by the other menâs compassion towards him. âWe had a funny freak attack of a Japanese kamikaze plane,â he recalled, âand I guess he was getting rid of his last load of these baby cutter bomb, these little bombs that explode at about three feet high so if they went off through a tent they exploded at bed level. I had just been in the tent of a guy I had been going with at the time. He crawled into bed, and I said goodnight and walked out the tent. And this plane came overhead and all we heard was explosions and we fell to the ground. When I got up too see if he was all right, the trust of the bomb had gone through his tent and he was not there. I went into a three-day period of hysterics. I was treated with such kindness by the guys that I worked with, who were all totally aware of why I had gone hysterical. It wasnât because we were bombed. It was because my boyfriend had been killed. And one guy in the tent came up to me and said, âWhy didnât you tell me you were gay? You could have talked to me.â I said, âWell, I was afraid to.â This big straight, macho guy. There was a sort of compassion then.â
After a raid in the Philippines, Ben Small remembered, a lieutenant who had been injured was being shipped back to the States, so the men âall went to the plane to see him off that night. It was an amazingly touching moment, when he and his lover said goodbye, because they embraced and kissed in front of all these straight guys and everyone dealt with it so well. I think it was just this basic thing about separation of someone you cared for, regardless of sex.â Small described this tender parting as âa little distilled moment out of timeâ when menâs âprejudices were suspendedâ and gay soldiers âcould be a part of what this meant.â
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