Soldiers and civilians slugged it out on the streets of Wellington on April 3, 1943 during the ‘Battle of Manners Street’, the best-known clash between New Zealanders and American servicemen during the Second World War.
Drunk Allied servicemen fighting each other on a Saturday night was not a good look, and news of the brawl was hushed up at the time. One young man who said he was a former member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force was convicted of being drunk and disorderly and fined £2 when he appeared before a magistrate on Monday morning. He was granted name suppression ‘in view of his record’.
On any day during the two years after June 1942, between 15,000 and 45,000 American soldiers and sailors were based in New Zealand (see 12 June), either before or immediately after experiencing the horrors of war in the Pacific.
The ‘American invasion’ led to a clash of cultures. Romantic liaisons developed between American troops and New Zealand women, about 1500 of whom married Americans during the war.
Many New Zealand men, especially soldiers serving overseas, resented the popularity of these American ‘bedroom commandos’. Tensions erupted into brawls in Wellington and Auckland.
NZHistory