In London, she had endured “The Blitz,” Hitler’s relentless aerial attacks. But this was a new challenge, to travel so far and live in a new country.

Lundgren found she wasn’t alone. Joyce Haner (then Johnson), who arrived on the Harbor about the same time, was eaving her home in Oxford. The two met on the train from New York and learned they had crossed the Atlantic together on the Queen Mary.

There were other newly arrived English women, who had fallen in love with men from Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Elma and Montesano. They met, and forged a bond over tea, biscuits and talk of all things English. Their friendship has lasted more than half a century.

The handful of original members first met at a meeting of the Daughters of the British Empire in 1946. Lundgren, Haner, Jean “Stevie” LaBreck, Nina Morgan and Jill Street immediately bonded. Their group was cemented at a party thrown by Lundgren’s mother-in-law.

“It was lovely to see more girls,” LaBreck recalls. “It’s been lovely meeting all these years.”

The group would later expand to include about 10 others. On April 18, the “English Club,” as they called themselves, held its final meeting.

“We’re all old ladies now,” LaBreck said.

“Young at heart, Stevie, OK?” Lundgren joked.

Many of the Club members have died, including Street. Others have moved to be closer to families or medical care. No longer able to hold regular monthly gatherings, the ladies decided to meet once last time.

The gathering was orginally planned as a Christmas party. But the woman who agreed to host it, Peggy Farnam, died.

Undeterred and buoyed by fond memories, the ladies celebrated Christmas in April, pulling on English “crackers” — holiday popping tubes that hold a paper crown and prizes.

They’ve always shared British customs, as well as their common experience.

Stevie LaBreck met her husband at Newcastle in 1943. It was the biggest town around, and she was taking a break from her nurses training. Don LaBreck, a member of the U.S. Army Air Forces, was on leave and on his way to visit his father in Scotland.

The two met at an afternoon tea dance.

“He never did get up to see his father,” LaBreck said. He did have to return to battle, and the two wrote letters to each other for the next two tumultuous years, marrying in 1945.

Nina Morgan ran into her future husband while walking her girlfriend home. Harry Morgan was polite and entertaining, so they started exchanging letters.

“He was gone for 16 months,” Morgan said. “He came back Thursday, July 27, and nine days later we got married.”

Where did Joyce Haner meet her first husband?

“I was in a pub,” Haner said, to the merriment of her friends. “There were GIs in there, and what made me think he was nice was he offered to take me to Scotland to see my brother,” who was in a hospital, wounded in combat. The couple married five months later.

Not everyone in the club was a war bride, but all have vivid memories of the war.

Cora Payne came to Grays Harbor with her English husband to find her father, who was living in Hoquiam. He was a veteran of World War I. Payne’s oldest daughter, who was a baby during World War II, looked at her one day in Hoquiam and, terrified, said she heard German planes.

“She was right,” Payne said. There was an exhibition going on at Bowerman Field, the former World War II airstrip along the bay at Hoquiam.

All the women recall the sound of the “doodlebugs,” the V1 flying bombs that the Nazis launched to pound London and other cities. “The sound was OK,” Payne said. “It was when you couldn’t hear them any more you knew they were about to blow up.”

Joan Pinto, who came to the U.S. in 1957 when her father took an engineering job, recalls being evacuated to Wales as a child, one of thousands of London youths sent to the country to protect them from Nazi bombs.

Lundgren’s younger sister was briefly evacuated to the countryside, a decision that left their mother in anguish.

When they got to the U.S., the women said, they were bowled over by the variety of goods they could get here. The English had been subjected to rigorous rationing, as Nazi submarines terrorized shipping for most of the war.

“In New York, we took a bus ride to the suburbs, and we saw all these bananas hanging outside of shops,” LaBreck recalled. “We all said, ‘Oh, stop! Stop!’ because we hadn’t seen bananas for years.”

Aberdeen was a whole different world. It was cold, the women recalled, and damp, even by their English standards. The buildings were made of wood instead of bricks. But the people were friendly. Very friendly.

“I think I became quiet because whenever I’d say anything, people would say, ‘You’re English!’ ” Lundgren said. It didn’t help that their slang was sometimes humorously different from American usage — “cheesed off” for “fed up,” “petrol” instead of “gas.”

In one another, the women found refuge. They could talk about their childhoods, their challenges, fond memories of English pastries and, of course, the Royal Family.

“Oh, we talked quite a bit about the Royal Family,” LaBreck said.

In every respect, the women say they are proud to be Americans. But they can’t let go of the Union Jack, tea time or their marvelous accents.

“I was proud” to become American, Haner said. “I think you’re proud of your citizenship, and proud of your heritage.”

The Club kept minutes, a duty assigned to Payne, the “so-called president.” They took up collections for charity. But they never really felt like dues-paying members.

“We’re like sisters, really,” Lundgren said.

The Club helped the women cope with homesickness, which became more acute after their first visits home. They were able to talk through their “stiff upper lips.”

“All I could think was, ‘How could I leave my mother?’ ” Payne said, echoing a common sentiment. “I wouldn’t have been able to make it if it weren’t for the English Club.”