WW2 files show schoolgirl VD "menace" (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) - World War Two was at its height and officials worried about a menace loose on the streets of London -- runaway schoolgirls infecting American GIs with venereal disease.

A yellowing file of records released this week at the National Archive shows that officials were concerned about a tide of "semi-delinquent" girls who were escaping from correctional boarding schools to head for the big city.

Such girls were "a greater danger than the prostitute proper in regard to spreading venereal disease," a Scotland Yard police official wrote to the Home Office.

"If all schools would take immediate steps to notify the Commissioner by telegram or telephone when a girl who may come to London absconds, we could round up a larger number of them promptly," the police official wrote.

A Home Office official noted: "Such girls, who were often suffering from venereal disease, after absconding, made their way to the West End of London and frequented undesirable cafes, where they could strike up acquaintances with American soldiers who had plenty of money.

"These American soldiers passed the girls on to their friends and in a very short time any one girl could be responsible for infecting a considerable number of people," he added.

The Home Office kept school-by-school records of the numbers of girls who ran away. Statistics were kept of those infected with syphilis, gonorrhoea or both.

One school, the Knowle Hill Approved School in Warwickshire, recorded 88 abscondings in 1942.

The papers show officials describing the girls as "an immediate menace" and exploring whether they could impose a special security regime on those with venereal disease to prevent them from escaping.

But eventually they decided that girls could only be locked up in hospital wings until their infections were no longer communicable.

"Once the girl has ceased to be infectious, there would seem to be no justification for maintaining this treatment, and no one has been able to devise any other special security measures, short of prison bars," one official lamented.

"Inspectors will continue to see that all possible steps are taken to segregate infectious girls and to make every effort to cope with the general problem of absconding.

"I think that is the best we can do."