From the battlefield, lonely WWI soldiers found love using newspaper personal ads
Pen pals with benefits
Isolate a bunch of young men on the front lines for years and they’re bound to get lonely…and creative.
During World War I, homesick British soldiers needed some way to get their rocks off. So, a group of enterprising young men took advantage of the growing “personals” sections of some less-than-legitimate London publications. Thus, the “lonely soldiers” movement was born. And the military hated it.
“Lonely young officer, up to his neck in Flanders mud, would like to correspond with young lady (age 18–20), cheery and good looking,” wrote one serviceman for T.P.’s Weekly in 1916. He added, “Gratefully declined advice for the prevention of bronchitis.”
They weren’t looking for mums, you see. These soldiers wanted sexy pen pals with a side of sauce. And maybe later, a wife.
The letters poured in. In 1915, The Daily Express reported that Private A. C. White had, within two days, received 470 letters and 200 parcels:
“Barely a week later, the Rifleman had received more than 800 presents, newspapers and boxes, ‘almost enough to set him up for life as a grocer, confectioner, and newsagent.’ His haul included 15 tuck boxes, 30 glasses of potted meat, 15 tins of Milkmaid Café au Lait, 15 packets of ‘nut-milk’ chocolate, 15 tins of smoked sardines, 15 tins of herring in tomato, 15 tins of Oxford sausages, 15 pots of Bovril, 7lb of ginger chips, several pounds of mixed drops, and 15 tin-openers.”
Once people knew how to reach eligible and randy young fighters, the postal service was overrun with correspondence. The newspapers enjoyed the popularity and even wrote articles to draw more eyes to the ads. One piece, headlined “Friends Wanted for Lonely Soldiers,” read, “There are many lonely men, who have no friends able to send them small comforts in the shape of tobacco, cigarettes, socks, scarves, gloves.” Others profiled soldiers who had ostensibly met their brides via personal ad and got married during leave, so-called “war weddings.”
Soon officers complained that if lonely soldier ads was allowed to continue, “the transport and disposal of the mails would be seriously hindered.” Intelligence feared the influx of mail from strangers would jeopardize wartime security. The War Office advised “the greatest care must be taken to avoid giving information of military value” and “playing into the hands of the enemy spy system.”
While mainstream papers generally stopped publishing lonely soldier ads, the personals simply trickled down to the seedier rags. In particular, the founder of The Link, Alfred Barrett, said he established the daily in order to soothe British loneliness and provide “companionship.” There, soldier ads intermingled with coded homosexual invitations and escort services. Words like “artistic” and “unconventional” often signaled same-sex tastes. The Link had become the controversial pickup spot for fringe lonely hearts, the Craigslist Casual Encounters of the Great War.
Soon Barrett was arrested for “conspiring to corrupt public morals,” and faced trial in 1921. There his lawyer argued The Link was used with a clear conscience by “servant girls, majors, colonels, lawyers, barristers, and clergymen.” Nevertheless, Barrett was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor. The Link shuttered.
As we know, the personal ad not only rebounded, it grew with time. If they weren’t seedy, 1980s and 90s classifieds were embarrassingly corny. Yet their success inspired an entire movement we call online dating.
As for the lonely soldiers, they won the war and married, or maybe took advantage of the loosened morals of the Roaring Twenties. To this day, people send letters and gifts to deployed soldiers — only now correspondence is facilitated by charitable organizations. Or there’s always the internet.
