re: #78 steve_davis

that word would have had a completely different context in 1940 than it does today. I’m sure there were lesbians in the military, but a woman calling someone a “girlfriend” would have been viewed in that context as “a girl who is a dear friend” rather than “a lover.” Just as my mother used to talk about someone “making love” to a gal, which in her depression-era parlance meant going through some romantic courtship ritual, like flirting with someone in conversation.

It was clearly written as “girl friend”.