From the war and into the 1960s, Gospel teams formed by American servicemen on military bases helped revive many local British churches. This is the story …
The Friendly Invasion
The UK was already at war from September 1939 but after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the US joined the conflict. In 1942, this led to vast numbers of Americans coming over to the UK for what was called the ‘Friendly Invasion’. The US 8th Air Force came to airbases all over eastern England. Millions of men and a few thousand women crossed the Atlantic, often in ships like the Queen Mary.
Chaplains
The American military had its own Chaplain Corps, and each airfield had its own chapel. The chapel was served by chaplains who held religious services but also had the sad task of holding funerals and memorial services for deceased servicemen. During the war American servicemen were usually classified as Protestant, Catholic or Jewish, and a few might also identify as Mormon. Typically, a large base would have three chaplains: a Protestant minister, who might typically be Baptist, Methodist, Congregational or Presbyterian; a Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi. Many of the American servicemen identified as Christian, although only a small number would actively worship at the chapel on the base, some might find a local church to join when he was free, and others would be nominal Christians. For many the context of war might either deepen their faith, or sometimes the evils of war might challenge it.
American-issue New Testaments
The American chaplains were issued with small New Testaments in the King James Version. These were about three inches wide by four and half inches high in brown leather, usually printed by the American Bible Society. The version was the King James Version, because modern translations we are used to today were not available then. Inside each of these New Testaments was a printed page with a letter with the printed signature of Franklin D Roosevelt which read: “As Commander-in-Chief I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States. Throughout the centuries men of many faiths and diverse origins have found in the Sacred Book words of wisdom, counsel, and inspiration. It is a fountain of strength and now, as always, an aid in attaining the highest aspirations of the human soul.”
Gospel teams
On some military bases chaplains formed Gospel teams from evangelical Christian servicemen. They provided spiritual support and provided religious instruction to fellow servicemen. These were usually cross-denominational, and it did not really matter if you were Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, Presbyterian, Pentecostal or one of the many other denominations. If there were many bases in one area then Gospel teams were more itinerant, travelling between military bases. Membership might change as the staff changed over time.
Function
Gospel teams provided spiritual support by conducting Bible studies, prayer meetings, and worship services. They aimed to encourage servicemen in their Christian faith, by holding lively services at the chapels at military camps and hospitals. Many times, their point of contact with people was through grief and injury due to their work. They would distribute Gospels, New Testaments, and other materials. Most often they would give out chaplaincy-issue, small pocket-sized New Testaments.
Gospel team services
Over time Gospel teams started to make connections with local British congregations. Often the connection would start with a local minister who was also a military chaplain, or when one of the servicemen became friendly with a local congregation. Typically, a team would be four to seven men, and one would open the service, one might lead the prayers, another preach the sermon, and others might sing songs as solos, duets, or quartets. Another might play an instrument, and they would sing catchy choruses. Typically, one or more of the men would give his testimony. Sometimes they would deliberately pick men from different denominations, or from different American states. They were usually called an “American Gospel Team” or sometimes a “Forces Gospel Team” or a “Witness Team”.
The testimonies of faith were even more interesting in the UK, because they featured details of American life, or answers to prayer in a military context which fascinated local British people. The men themselves were often not very old, perhaps only 19 or in their early twenties which appealed to young people.
After each service if anyone made a profession of faith, they would give them a small chaplaincy-issue New Testament, and the group might write the date and sign the inside cover as a reminder of the person’s commitment. Typically, they might take a service in one church and then be invited to another one and they built up a local reputation, and some young people might follow their itinerary. For some young girls, the handsome young men in uniform were an added attraction and reason to attend.
Bovingdon Gospel Team
From August 1942, Americans were based at Bovingdon Airfield on the Bucks/Herts border in the Chilterns. It was one of the most important bases and Colonel Frank L Miller, Chief of Chaplains, was based there. A group of evangelicals were associated with the airfield chapel, and were befriended by the local Methodist minister, Rev Dr Wearmouth, who as well as being a circuit minister was also a military chaplain. He had written a book called “Pages from a Padre's Diary”, about his role as a chaplain in the First World War.
A group of American servicemen at Bovingdon formed the “American Gospel Team”, although it sometimes included some Canadians, led by Sergeant Gib Clark of Ohio, and Bill Dyer of Tennessee. They took Saturday evening youth evenings in the village of Ley Hill, and Sunday services in local Methodist and Baptist chapels across the Chilterns in and around Chesham, Hemel Hempstead, and Berkhamsted, but especially in the Chiltern villages near Chesham. In those days, most Chiltern villages had a Methodist or a Baptist chapel, although some have since closed.
After the war some of the men stayed and held week-long revival missions in some local churches. The group did not remain the same, some left, and they recruited some local people, and it became the “Anglo-American Gospel Team”. Then in 1946, after the Americans left, two churches formed their own Gospel Teams.
United Nations Witness Team
A Gospel Team was formed in London in 1942 called the United Nations Forces Witness Team. It was sometimes called the United Nations Gospel Team and was formed in London from American, British, and Canadian servicemen, but at different times had also included people from New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, India, and Holland. They used to meet in Marble Arch and welcomed up to 300 people to Bible Study and prayer meetings.
A team, selected from fifty men and women in varying shades of uniform, took services in churches in the London area. The story was later told in a book called “Saved to Save Others – the Story of the United Nations Witness Team”, written in 1947 by team members and edited by Harry Young, who led the group until it disbanded later in 1946. In the foreword written in 1947, Tom Rees wrote “The youth of Britain are looking for sincerity and reality … Theirs was an up to date religion and one that worked.”
Other wartime Gospel teams
In 1945 a group called the “TNT Gospel Team” operated out of Lakenheath Airbase and took services in churches in the Bury and Newmarket area of West Suffolk. Another group was made up of Americans from bases in the Preston areas of Lancashire and was called the “Preston Gospel Team”.
Post-war Gospel teams
After the war many American bases remained in the UK because of the ongoing Cold War and events such as the Berlin Airlift. In peacetime it was easier for Gospel teams to operate, and new ones were formed at different bases. In the 1950s and 1960s there was a group based at Lakenheath Base in Suffolk, who were known as the “Soldiers of the Cross” and later as the “King’s Messengers”.
Another group operated from Scunthorpe Base known as the “American Gospel Team” and one in south Wales was called “The King’s Envoys” led by Mr Frank Gonzales. In January 1964, a group was formed by Jim Smith of Pasadena in California, who was based at Wethersfield Base in north Essex. The group was called “the Gospelairs” and they took services in the Saffron Walden area until 1966.
Legacy
Back in North America, most of the men from these Gospel Teams went into Christian ministry. Their bases and the churches of Britain where they received a welcome were their active training field. The men went on to become missionaries, pastors, or served as leaders in evangelical organisations during the post-war religious revival in the US.Meanwhile there had been a kind of revival among the local churches they visited, which now had bigger youth groups. Churches adopted some of the new choruses, and styles of lively worship. Once the Americans left, some churches adopted the idea and created their own Gospel teams. Many of these young people continued to tell the story of the Americans who came and witnessed about their faith in Jesus.
These Gospel teams had a cultural impact because they helped lay the groundwork for the post-war evangelical movement. When Billy Graham came, many British people already had a taste of American-style evangelical mission and liked it.
Today in small corners of England, there are a diminishing number of elderly people who still fondly remember the American servicemen who came and livened up their churches and kindled their faith.
