USA during ww2 help

I'm pretty sure cash was still used.

Ration books were used for items that were needed for the war effort- GAS was the big one (for planes, tanks, half tracks, and the other vehicles the soldiers used). Also things like sugar and butter, and I believe meat too. Those were all needed to put into the soldiers K-rations (the food they ate).

Citizens were encouraged to start victory gardens to supplement meat and butter and homemakers came up with various recipes where they could use substitutions for these items.

I'm not sure if only American citizens were eligible for ration books or not. Perhaps if the refugees had been through immigration they might have been eligible.

Here's a good link:
http://www.ameshistoricalsociety.org/exhibits/events/rationing.htm

Perhaps someone else might know more about the refugee status.

WW2 was a"current event" for me. I was 9 1/2 when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

We used our regular money. Ration books were exactly that for meat, sugar, coffee, butter, eggs and there might have been other items. We needed a separate sticker on the windshield for automobiles. My father had "A" which allowed him 4 gallons/week because he was not working in a defense plant or for the government.

Fortunately, we lived in San Francisco which had great street car transportation and was a city approximately 5X7 miles. He took public transportation to save on gas for the 150 mile round trip in the summer to the beach resort Capitola at the north end of Monterey Bay. No civilian cars, zippers and such were manufactured for the duration of the war. Nylon went for parachutes. We had "drives" to collect aluminum and tinfoil. Metals were not manufactured for civilians.

I cannot answer questions about exchange of money by refugees. I am certain they would have had ration books.

There was a thriving black market for ration stamps here in the US. It was very easy to buy or sell them.



Richard

Yes, cash was in use during WWII. They used cash and the rationbooks to make their purchases. If you had the cash, but not the ration stamps, you could not get what you needed that week.

I believe refugees were allow to use ration stamps. I do remember reading Sonia Levitin's book Silver Days. In that, the family who escaped Nazi Germany used ration stamps here in the U.S. after Pearl Harbor was bombed.

I have my father-in-law's ration book. He was a baby then and there were only two ration stamps in it. Every man, woman, child, and baby had a ration book with their name on it. You got a new book of stamps each month, I believe. My father-in-law's ration books says, "War Ration Book No. 2 (for the year 1942, I think) and I found another ration book at an antique shop back in 1990. That one read War Ration Book No. 3 (for the year, 1943). There was a lot of stamps left in that book. They were the blue ones. The two stamps in my father-in-law's ration book were white stamps. I used to know what the white, blue and red stamps meant, but I have since forgotten.

This was probably more than you needed, but I thought it might help in some way. If you have any more questions about WWII in the U.S. don't hesitate to ask. That's my favorite time of study and writing. If I don't know the answer, someone else will here. Good luck with your book!

-Kristi

Below is some material I prepared for a booklet about my community's involvement in World War II. There's more here than rationing - but worth knowing. Puma

RATIONING - After Pearl Harbor the country geared up for war. Production of consumer goods took a back seat to production of materials for the war effort. Supplies of goods that had been readily available were re-directed to the soldiers fighting the war. Rationing quickly followed. In May, 1942, the U.S. Office of Price Administration froze the prices on almost all common goods - starting with sugar and coffee.

With rationing everyone was limited in how much of certain goods they could buy - even if they could pay for more. The government instituted rationing to make sure that everyone got a fair share of items that were in short supply. War ration books and tokens were issued to every American family. The books and tokens set the limits on how much sugar, meat, gasoline, and other goods each family could buy. The 1943 Sears Roebuck catalog contained a list of all rationed farm equipment - even chicken wire was rationed.
Car tires were rationed from January, 1942 to December, 1945
Cars were rationed from February, 1942 to October, 1945
Bicycles were rationed from July, 1942 to September, 1945
Gasoline was rationed from May, 1942 to August, 1945
Fuel Oil and Kerosene were rationed from October, 1942 to August, 1945
Stoves were rationed from September, 1943 to August, 1945
Rubber footwear was rationed from October, 1942 to September, 1945
Shoes were rationed from February, 1943 to October, 1945
Sugar was rationed from May, 1942 to 1947
Coffee was rationed from November, 1942 to July, 1943
Processed foods were rationed from March, 1943 to August, 1945
Meats and canned fish were rationed from March, 1943 to November, 1945
Cheese, canned milk, & fats were rationed from March, 1943 to November, 1945
Typewriters were rationed from March, 1942 to April, 1944

There were different forms of rationing. Uniform coupon rationing provided an equal share of a commodity to all consumers (sugar). Point rationing provided equal shares of coupons that could be spent for combinations of items valued by points (canned goods). Differential coupon rationing provided shares of single products based on need (gasoline).

Mandatory gasoline rationing began in the spring of 1942. To get a classification and ration stamps, drivers had to certify to a local board that they needed gas and owned no more than five tires. By the end of 1943, half of the automobiles in the US had been issued an "A" ration sticker, which allowed the owners to buy four gallons of gasoline a week. "A" stickers were issued to cars that were considered non-essential - but, the "A" stickered cars were not to be driven for pleasure.

"B" stickers were issued for cars deemed essential to the war effort and entitled the owners to eight gallons of gasoline a week. "C" stickers were given to physicians, ministers, mail carriers, and railroad workers. "T" stickers went to truckers. Truckers supplying the population with supplies had access to unlimited amounts of fuel.

Not everyone could make it through the month on their gasoline allotments.

Nationally, the Victory Speed, the speed maximum, was 35 miles per hour. In a Warner Brothers cartoon from the period, Daffy Duck told the audience to "Keep it under 40!" Carpools were encouraged.

FOOD - Home canning and preserving were highly encouraged. Sugar was made more available during jam and jelly making season, but became a scarcity again as soon as the season was over which frustrated some homemakers.

Rationing and the scarcity of some food items meant re-thinking of family meal preparation. A cookbook published during the war period advocated making soup, lots of soups - "Practically all leftovers except sweets may go into the soup kettle. When making stock use the bones from steaks, chops and roasts, ham bones, the gristly end of the tongue, carcasses of roast poultry and poultry feet. Drain all vegetable liquor as well as the liquid from canned vegetables into the soup kettle."

Smoked meats and larger cuts of fresh meat were shipped to the armed forces. That left the smaller cuts and more perishable pieces such as the liver, sweetbreads, kidneys, heart, and tripe available to home kitchens. Consumers were encouraged to use them and told that these pieces contained more vitamins than the cuts they had been accustomed to. Consumers were also encouraged to use poultry and fresh fish, neither of which was easy to ship, although salted fish was sent to the troops.

Fats were in high demand as this article shows: "SAVE ALL FATS AND OILS - Save every ounce of fat; use what you need for cooking and take the rest to your meat dealer, who will pay you for it. These reclaimed fats are not used for food but in the manufacture of munitions and soap. Fat to be sold to the meat market must be clear and free from water or other liquid. Keep a container near the stove with a fine wire strainer in the top. Pour melted fat through the strainer to remove bits of meat or crumbs. While fats are so vitally needed for defense the patriotic American homemaker will use them sparingly for deep fat frying and will make meat loaves instead of croquettes, cookies instead of doughnuts."

"More kitchen fat means more glycerine to make bombs and bullets!"

VICTORY GARDENS - Because commercially canned fruits and vegetables were needed to send to the troops, Americans were encouraged to plant "Victory Gardens" to provide food for their own use. By 1945, an estimated 20 million "Victory Gardens" across the U.S. produced about 40% of this country's vegetables. Saturday Evening Post and Life magazines printed stories about "Victory Gardens". Women's magazines contained instructions on how to grow and preserve garden produce. As a consequence, in 1943, American families bought 315,000 pressure cookers for canning - five times the number that had been sold the previous year.

RECYCLING - Everyday commodities were vital to the war effort and civilians were asked and encouraged to save and turn in materials for recycling into items needed for the war. Steel was a critical need at first, but became less of a need as damaged materials were returned from overseas for recycling. But for the entirety of the war, rubber, tin, aluminum, iron, kitchen fats, paper, lumber, and other items were collected and turned in to help the war effort. The Government organized a conservation and recycling effort and even gave states and cities quotas to reach. Communities held paper and scrap iron drives (and sometimes received a little cash in exchange). Children were encouraged to get involved and sometimes turned in their own metal toys for the scrap drives.

REPLACEMENT GOODS - Kapok, a soft, cottony material, was used to fill life jackets, but the supply of Kapok was cut off when the Japanese occupied Java. A substitute was needed and found in the fluff of milkweed plants. A major campaign with the slogan "Two bags save one life" was begun to get school children to collect milkweed pods. Nation wide, more than 11 million pounds of milkweed pods were collected by war's end (and did save lives.)

Things like grease from cooking was saved. How grease fat helped the war effort, I'll never understand. There was an announcement on the radio then that went something like this: "Ladies, bring your fat cans to..." and they'd say where to bring them. On radio, programs like Fibber McGee and Molly informed people of how important it was for rationing and not to complain about shortages. There used to be something called "Meatless Tuesdays" then. Shoes were rationed, along with tires for cars. You could buy a pair of stockings on the black market, however, doing that would be considered unpatriotic then. Just came up with a few more things that might help you. I could discuss the war years for hours.

-Kristi

Excellent and very informative post, Puma!

-Kristi

My grandmother had a garden and chickens. They also hunted and 'canned' the venison and elk. Fishing was available nearby and they also 'canned' fish.

MM

KayEn78 said:

Things like grease from cooking was saved. How grease fat helped the war effort, I'll never understand. There was an announcement on the radio then that went something like this: "Ladies, bring your fat cans to..." and they'd say where to bring them. On radio, programs like Fibber McGee and Molly informed people of how important it was for rationing and not to complain about shortages. There used to be something called "Meatless Tuesdays" then. Shoes were rationed, along with tires for cars. You could buy a pair of stockings on the black market, however, doing that would be considered unpatriotic then. Just came up with a few more things that might help you. I could discuss the war years for hours.

-Kristi

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My great grandmother Rennscheidt could have kept the war effort going singlehandedly. Straight off the boat from Germany, and used the same grease to cook EVERYTHING.

My great aunt was so amazed when she met my grandfather's new wife. Everything tasted so wonderful! What did she do? After a while, they figured out that grandma did not cook her food that way, so everything didn't taste exactly the same.

Just wanted to add that in 1943, the US Mint struck pennies made of steel rather than copper since there was a copper shortage due to the war effort.

In Junior High we had meatless Tuesdays in the cafeteria. I am sure butchers sold horsemeat in place of beef.

Those who parked cars overnight on the streets often had no gas in the morning because people went around siphoning it.

After the war, it took several years for the auto industry to fill demand. We had to wait for a new car until the spring of 1948. I believe the Studebaker may have been the first to appear in 1946.

Wow, I didn't realize people would go around and steal the gas from other people's cars! Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. I enjoy your memories of the war years, donroc. Keep 'em coming! Those must've been exciting, yet very difficult times, especially for a young kid.

-Kristi

There was also a black market for gas stamps. But, in my area the local stores that had gas pumps collected unused stamps from people who didn't need all they'd been allocated and distributed them to people who needed more. My Dad was a college professor who lived 17 miles away from the college. His stamps were enough to get him to school three times a week, not five. Thank heaven's for the local farmers who turned in their unneeded stamps!

I was born a year before the end of the war but many of the practices begun for war time conservation continued on at our house. Tin cans had their paper labels and both ends removed then crushed with a foot and put in a container for recycling; we had a fat can at the back of the stove; we ate lots of soup (and I still love it). It was definitely a time of "waste not, want not". Puma

Yes, they were exciting. I had huge wall maps of the ETO and Pacific with flags attached to pins that I moved each day according to reports of advances or retreats. I learned much geography that way. Early in the war my friends and I used to play war games in Golden Gate Park seeking places where we could fight the "Japs" if they landed. We learned aircraft spotting, and I knew the outline of every fighter and bomber.

Our parents generally were of the inbetween age -- too young to serve in WWI and too old for WWII so we did not have that stress -- although many of our cousins served.

I took a huge future financial loss when I decided in 1944 I was too old for comic books and donated my entire collection of more than a thousand to the wounded soldiers at Letterman Hospital. They included Superman and Batman #1, World's Fair special edition of DC comics, Sheena and Planet Comics and Captain Marvel #1 and the Torch vs. Submariner. One of my uncles owned two pharmacies and each week he gave me the comic books at no charge.

As an aside, I kept them in the bathroom in a closet next to the throne, and many an adult guest would go there and not come out for a long time.

After the war at my high school, it was a big deal when someone bought a Pendleton shirt and a cashmere sweater because they had not yet been available in large numbers. War suplus clothing was popular, especially leather Air Force flight jackets ($25 each) and Navy pea coats for the boys. One style was to wear khaki trousers, white t-shirt, and a flight jacket snap buttoned at the top but left unzipped. For the girls in San Francisco, given the climate, it was "new-look" style skirts that came down almost to the ankles, bobby sox and saddle shoes, heavy coats over sweaters, and babushka scarves. Very few teens had their own cars, and if they did it was a relic from the 1930s. One girl drove a 1929 sedan as we saw in The Untouchables that had on the back seat sides containers with soil and plants. Like my father's 1934 Chevvy, it had windowshades too.

Kids are what they are, and we took it all in stride after the initial fear of invasion and bombing. We were typically concerned with grades, sports, and crushes.

My parents were of that age where it impacted them directly. My mother and grandmother lived together while my grandfather was in Europe and my father in the Pacific. I recall my mother telling of when her mother dropped a bag with eggs and broke all but two of them. Granmother was in tears because they couldn't get more until the following week.

I think in many ways my grandparents (on my Mom's side) had it a little easier than many others. My grandfather worked on the railroad, so he was considered vital to the war effort. And although they lived in town, a very small town, they were both farm people and were accustomed to raising/finding their own food and making do or doing without. My other grandfather worked for the copper mines, so he was valued also. That grandmother died when I was very young, so I don't know how they would have managed things.

And siphoning gas wasn't just a thing of war time. In about 1974 there were gas shortages (I don't remember why), long lines at the pumps, you could only get gas on alternate days, etc. And if you did not have a locking gas cap, you'd wake up to an empty tank.

MM

MaryMumsy said:

I think in many ways my grandparents (on my Mom's side) had it a little easier than many others. My grandfather worked on the railroad, so he was considered vital to the war effort. And although they lived in town, a very small town, they were both farm people and were accustomed to raising/finding their own food and making do or doing without. My other grandfather worked for the copper mines, so he was valued also. That grandmother died when I was very young, so I don't know how they would have managed things.

And siphoning gas wasn't just a thing of war time. In about 1974 there were gas shortages (I don't remember why), long lines at the pumps, you could only get gas on alternate days, etc. And if you did not have a locking gas cap, you'd wake up to an empty tank.

MM

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OPEC oil embargo that year, in addition to other stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis

My mom decided to take a trip to Disney World by herself (without the husband and kids) and was frantic, because there was no way to get gas.

My Dad was in the too old group to fight, but he worked after school at one of the large army depots filling supply orders. He was very upset when he came home one night that an order for all the materials to build a building in the Aleutian Islands had been sent out without the wood timbers requested. He knew the Aleutians did not have trees for timber, but those above him didn't.

My brothers had books for aircraft spotting and models of airplanes hanging from the ceiling in their room. They knew them all, which fascinated me, their little sister. But it was frustrating - all those toys I couldn't play with! Puma

No one in my family served in the military during WWII or afterward. Like some posts above, they were either too young or too old. My uncles told me that my grandpa wanted to go to fight in the war, but his parents wouldn't sign the papers. He had graduated from eighth grade in 1942 (and graduated from high school in 1946). I guess he could've lied about his age, like others did, but he didn't. When the Korean conflict came around, my grandpa didn't pass the physical due to flat feet. So most likely, if his parents had signed those papers that allowed him to fight in WWII, he probably would've been turned down due to the flat feet. Or by the time, he would've gone (which would've been around 1944 or 1945) they were taking anybody--so maybe they would've taken him. Our family history sure would've been different had my grandpa gone to war.

When I worked a few years ago, a former co-worker of mine came from a large family--five brothers and quite a few sisters. She told me she'll never forget Pearl Harbor because it upset her mother so much. My former co-worker was fifteen at that time and later that day, after hearing the news of the attack, she found her mother in her room crying. When Kathy asked why she was crying, her mother replied, "My boys are going to war...." Sadly, her mother had diabetes and was doing pretty well with everything, but in early 1942, she passed away due to complications caused from the diabetes. She never saw her sons go off to war. They did, eventually, at different times. All of them came home, but the one who fought in the Battle of the Bulge was not the same. She was in high school during those war years and remembered many classmates quitting school to join the service. She told me that a lot of them didn't come back. The ones who did weren't the same, but still came home to get a job and raise a family. She told me she knew someone who was on Iwo Jima and they remembered the flag raising. They were so far away though, it was hard to know what was going on. Coming from a large family like that, having the older siblings married and the ones of the right age to go to war, and with her mother dying, they only ones left in that big house they lived in were Kathy and her father. To help with the housing shortage that went on during and after the war, her father converted the sixteen-room house into several small apartments. A smart move on his part.

My husband's uncle also fought at Iwo Jima--the buddy next to him stepped on a landmine and Uncle Donald got some of that too. He couldn't hear out of his right ear or see out of his right eye and that whole right side of him didn't work right anymore. After being wounded on Iwo Jima, his war was over. Another one of my husband's relatives was in France during the war--if he was there on June 6, 1944 or days afterward, I'm not really sure. My father-in-law's father was in the Air Corps. and died while flying mission over Germany. Not much else is known about him.

These war stories and memories of the war fascinate me. Thank you so much for sharing your memories with the board. These stories and memories can help with research when writing about this era. I know it does for me. It gives you a more realistic feeling about that time. I told you, I'd go on about the war years. But I'll end here....this is getting quite long and kind of off topic.

-Kristi

KayEn78 said:

These war stories and memories of the war fascinate me.
-Kristi

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Me too. Especially since most of my kin were either too old or too young. But in doing genealogy, I've found other relatives who fought.

My dad was too young. He was only 12 when the war ended. His oldest brother was an MP in Hawaii, and got stabbed by a guy who was peeking at a hot tub (whatever they were called back then) of lady servicefolk.

His next oldest brother was on a troopship headed towards Japan when they dropped the bombs. So as much as I hate the thought of the nuclear bombs, I am glad I got to know my uncle, because chances are, if he'd had to fight in Japan, he wouldn't have come back.

One of the cousins I found helped liberate Mauthausen concentration camp. He died before I found him, but I spoke to his wife and daughter. His wife didn't even know he'd been in the war because he never talked about it. It wasn't until years later when there was something on TV that he mentioned it.

I mentioned the booklet on WWII I did for my community just a couple years ago. I was able to interview two of the veterans, one of whom had hardly talked about the war (his family was happy to finally hear his story.) He had been in the Med Corp and received two purple hearts and the bronze and silver star. Even though it had been over fifty years, he was sketchy in the details, but very happy to talk about non-essential details before the war. And, after talking to him I can understand his reluctance. In one instance as they moved into France, German artillery fired into where they were dug in and he had to pull out the dead - including his best friend. That would be hard to take.

My brother in law was in the forces that landed in Normandy on D-Day. On the 50th anniversary I called to tell him how proud I was of him and how grateful we all our of his service. He was like a fountain that had been capped for years and talked for most of an hour, telling me all about the landing and climbing up the cliffs. I wish I'd had a tape recorder on the phone call. Puma

My Dad enlisted in March, 45 and was discharged in Nov 45. We used gasoline ration coupons and maybe some others. The coupons were not a substitute for money. They documented how much of each controlled commodity we were allowed to purchase.

I was 1.5 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked, so I don't recall the beginning of the war, but I do recall the end. Church bells ringing, people dancing in the streets, my Mom telling us that our Dad would be home soon, happy music on the radio.

We had a victory garden. My Mom let us boys work in it. We had the emblem in the window identifying our family as having a soldier on duty.

I still have my Dad's discharge papers and service ribbons and the letters he and my Mom exchanged (one a day, each).

MaryMumsy said:

In about 1974 there were gas shortages (I don't remember why), long lines at the pumps, you could only get gas on alternate days, etc.

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Gasoline prices were regulated by law. The petroleum industry tightened the supply until the government lifted the regulations. As soon as that happened, prices went up and gasoline was plentiful.

Comedian Bob Hope commented that there had been no shortage of gas. Just cheap gas.

[/hijack]

These stories of WWII are fascinating. I love hearing people tell about the real history they lived through. Such extraordinary times!

I believe my mother's father was too young.

However, the men on my father's side were part of the war effort. My grandfather, Charlie, worked for Hercules. Hercules was an offshoot of Dupont (the government broke Dupont up because it was too monopolistic). Since Dupont/Hercules made explosives, Charlie wasn't sent to the front lines but went to Kansas to work at a plant. My grandmother, Roberta, was a young woman (she turned 17 in 1941) driving a bus on the site. She was born in Lawrence, Kansas (her grandparents were Jayhawkers) and took a detour to Florida during the Depression. Her family went bust in Florida, so they went back to Kansas, where she met my grandfather. That's how a man from a western PA railroad family ended up with a girl from Kansas. If it weren't for the war, they would have never met.

My great-uncle Ross was on a PT boat in the pacific. I didn't know him very well, but after the war and until the day he died a few years ago, he was very active in natural resource preservation in PA.