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Joan and Bill Bentson

Joan Bentson (far left) and three friends boarding the Mariposa 1946 Private Collection

Joan and Bill Bentson’s wedding photograph 1943 Private collection

Joan and Bill Bentson 2006

Have you travelled for love? Tell us your story

‘She picked me up at a dance one night’

In 1942, Brisbane was going through a metamorphosis. It was shedding its ‘big country town’ skin and emerging as the headquarters for the Pacific War. It was a place where pasts were left behind and futures were made. In an atmosphere of ‘live today because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring’, 17-year-old Joan Staines met 23-year-old Bill Bentson at a dance at Brisbane City Hall. This was Joan’s first dance and Bill, an American, became her first boyfriend.

Their courtship unfolded at the Astor picture theatre, the Oasis Gardens and New Farm Park. Four months later they were married. Joan says 'perhaps it was impulsive and reckless, but even if I had waited another 10 years I could not have been any surer than I was that I wanted to marry Bill’.

Joan Staines and Major Bill Bentson were married on 20 February 1943 at St Michaels and All Angels Church at New Farm. They sent a telegram to Bill’s parents expressing their joy after the ceremony. Sixty-six years, three children and several trans-Pacific voyages later, they are still married. Apart from a short honeymoon at Binna Burra, Joan and Bill spent most of the years between 1943 and 1946 apart. Bill was a supplies and logistics warrant officer on General MacArthur’s staff and was posted to Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.

In 1946 Joan sailed with around 800 other war brides on the Mariposa. Joan was the first person to step off the ship at San Francisco and into Bill’s welcoming arms. They both remember how the crowd on the docks cheered as they kissed. Joan Bentson sailed from Brisbane to the USA on 31 May 1946 on the ‘war-bride’ ship, Mariposa. Some rooms on the Mariposa were converted into a nursery and creche. The USA government charted special ships and trains to transport the estimated 92,000 wives and 20,000 children of American servicemen from around the world to the USA.

Joan and Bill Bentson lived in Oregon, USA for 18 years where Joan had to settle into a new culture and country and get to know a new family. For Joan this was a ‘big adventure’ that she had ‘no qualms about’, although she didn’t like leaving her family. Both Joan and her mother started corresponding with Bill’s mother in 1943 and grew to know and like each other through exchanging over 400 letters. In 1964 the Bentson family returned to Australia on the Mariposa and settled in Brisbane. Joan was one of an estimated 12,000 Australian women who married American servicemen during World War II.

‘Off to States’ 1946 State Reference Library, State Library of Queensland FILM/S 0017	Oasis Swimming Complex 1964 John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland Image number 193524 The Oasis Gardens at Sunnybank contained three delightful swimming pools and a wading pool for children in seven acres of lush tropical gardens. With a miniature zoo and kiosk, it was one of the places to relax in Brisbane in the 1940s. The complex closed in 1989 and was re-developed for housing.
P F C DAVISSON Cartoon of an Australian soldier catching his wife kissing an American serviceman 1943 John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland Image number 156736 In 1943 over 100,000 American servicemen were stationed in Brisbane, making up over 20% of the city’s population. Many people thought the Americans were ‘stealing’ young Australian women from Aussie blokes.	Cartoon of American soldier and female companion going to the cinema c.1943 John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland Image number 156764

The State Library of Queensland would like to thank Joan and Bill Bentson for sharing their story and loaning items for the exhibition.

• For more information about Australian war brides marrying American soldiers see Yanks Down Under 1941-45 by Annette and Daniel Potts.
• For information about British war brides marrying Australian soldiers see Overseas War Brides: Stories from the women who followed their hearts to Australia by Simon and Schuster.

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