Endless Possibilities for Home Front Notes

[connie]

I hope others will start threads here -- things you remember and would like the next generation to remember, too. Some things were the experiences of all in wartime. Some were specific to the the 106th and the Battle of the Bulge.

Topics could range from saving bacon fat to time between mail to wondering and waiting.

One mundane question I have is on the fat that was saved for the war effort. Did that include suet? I think of the blocks of suet my grandmother put out in the winter for the birds and I wonder if the birds did without during the war?

I know that some of wives and mothers waiting back home developed their own support system. Can anyone speak to that? My mom has been gone a long time. These are questions I can't ask. I do have inklings of a paper trail.

Some POW's had some mail get through both ways. Others I think had none. And probably others had only a fraction of what was sent.

The families of those who remained to fight again probably did not face the same mail hurdles that the POW's faced. But, they still have their mail delay stories...

And, there was coming home. There weren't phone calls from the ETO saying I'm on my way. I think in most (all?) cases that final notice came from a call from the US or a knock on the door.

And there was the experience of the families who lost someone. I don't know if anyone will want to address this topic, but this reality needs to at least be acknowledged. I know that everyone who returned was well aware that the other fate could easily have been his, too. And I know some widows felt isolated from neighbors and friends who did not wish to face that this reality could easily be theirs. It is unfortunate they were not all surrounded by wives of the 106th. I think they had all had to face the worst of possibilities and would have provided a better support system.

But outside the heavy-duty stuff there is the interesting trivia of daily life that those who lived through it took for granted and those of us who came after the war don't know. A friend in England spoke of the shortage of bananas there and of the replacement of shelled eggs with powdered. I know there were specific shortages you faced and creative recipes for working around those shortages. The little details are interesting.

If anyone wants to pick up here, those of us who weren't there would be grateful for anything you might wish to share.

This is a tribute to those back home who sacrificed in so many ways.

Connie

[floydragsdale]

Hello Connie:

Before I entered the Service in "43" I remember some things about shortages on the home front and a few other stories.

Many things were rationed. Gas for one; my fathers allowance was 2 gallons a week. He walked to work to save his ration coupons. Gas was about 16 cents a gallon. Also, civilians could not buy tires for their cars. Tires were made out of rubber then & most rubber came from far-east rubber plantations. The Japanese had tight control of the area where rubber came from. When tires became "bald or near that, they were re-capped or re-treaded.

The national speed limit on the high-way was 35mph to save the rubber on tires and get better miles per gallon on gas. People driving cars were not supposed to make trips of more than 35 miles from home. I remember (when in the Army) hitch-hiking home on furlough; a person could stand at an intersection for 15 or 30 minutes waiting for a car to go by. It was easy for a person in uniform to get a ride; just about every one driving a car would stop. Yet, in most cases, the driver would say, " I'm only going to the next town (maybe 10 or twenty miles down the road) but you are welcome to ride with me."

There was a shortage of meat, sugar & other things in the grocery store. Farmers raised sugar beets for sugar. I remember hoeing them during the summer months.

There was double daylight saving time, year-round, to save on electricity. Many mornings, fall, winter & spring, I walked to school in the dark and during the summer months there was still sunset rays in the western sky at ten o' clock in the evening.

The Railroad Companies would not change their clocks, however. Thus, if a person had a bus, or train to catch they had to factor in a two hour time difference between R.R. Time and "Government Time". A few people missed train connections because of that one.

Many people had "victory gardens" in their back yards. There were "meatless" days, during the week, in everyone's home at the dinner table.

I remember a story about a lady shopping in a grocery store. She kept going by the meat counter, looking for hamburger, roast beef, or pork, but there was none to be found. Finally the Butcher suggested some " beef tongue" they had just received that morning. She replied to the Butcher, "I don't' want anything that came out of an animals mouth; give me a dozen eggs." That incident, at a Grocery Store, produced quite a few laughs, to say the least.

When I entered the service, there were items that could be purchased in the PX (Post Exchange) that my parents couldn't get at home.

When I came home on furlough, I had to buy gasoline on the black market @ 29 cents a gallon, if I wanted to use Dad's car; Dad thought that was a terrible price to pay for gas.

Trains and Buses were very crowded. I stood up for hours on end riding the IL Central R.R. from Hattiesburg, MS to Chicago. Finally, the Conductor led me to the Baggage Car where I went to sleep on a casket & Box (with a body inside) that was being transported to Chicago; in spite of that, I was so tired that I went to sleep anyway.

There was a shortage of "men" on the home front & a Soldier had no trouble getting a date while he was home on furlough.

Probably, I could write a book about this subject, however its best to quit for now.

Floyd

[connie]

Floyd,

This is interesting stuff. Some was familiar to me but some was totally new. Those of us born shortly after the war have a few inklings of what things might have been like. Even this is lost to the next generation. It's fun to read what you have to say.

Post depression and post war, there were thrifty ways of living that probably grew out of what came before and maybe the necessity of the day. I remember Mom washing little scraps of aluminum foil for re-use. And instead of plastic wrap, there were little shower-cap like affairs that fit over jelly jars, etc. They could be washed and reused. But both of these may have been post war items. I'm wondering if aluminum foil even existed in the average household during the war...

Connie

[floydragsdale]

Hello Connie:

I don't remember aluminum foil before, or during the war. Lead foil was something we saved and turned in for the war effort. Some brands of Limburger Cheese were sold with a lead foil wrap around the product. We "squashed" all metal cans for the war effort & newspapers were saved for the same reason.

Other items were no doubt turned in for the same purpose, however, I can't recall them at the moment.

Aluminum foil was, I believe, a by-broduct of WWII.

Floyd

[connie]

Floyd,

Thanks for clearing up the foil question and adding more metal information. The lead brings to mind the tubes that contained paint tint. My grandmother had a business that, among other things, sold paint. She saved those little lead paint tubes for years after the war. This must have been the origin of that habit.

Thinking about the gasoline rationing... I am remembering the long lines at the pumps that we had for a while back in the '70s when there were temporary shortages. I am assuming that the ration coupons eliminated some of this...?

Connie

[floydragsdale]

Hello Connie;

In WWII days, I recall no lines at the gas pumps. A shortage of Gasoline was not reported in those days.

The idea of gas rationing was to keep people from driving to save the "rubber" on their tires; also to keep low miles on the cars. The manufacture of new cars was halted in the early months of the War. Cars were not made to run for a hundredthousand miles or more in those years.

GM, Ford & other car makers were making Army vehicles (tanks, Trucks, Jeeps & so on).

Used cars, if one could be found, were at a premium price, anywhere in the USA.

Flat cars on freight trains were "loaded" with military vehicles all the time throughout the War years.

Busses & trains were crowded & many times when a person boarded public transportation, there was "standing room" only.

A person in a "military uniform" was treated like royalty everywhere they went.

The ladies rolled up their sleeves & hair and took the jobs that men left behind when the boys entered the service.

I remember walking by a factory, in uniform & the girls just about fell out of the windows, waving, whislteing and smiling at me.

When a guy wasn't on the front lines getting shot at it was a good time, in spite of the War, to be alive.

Floyd

[floydragsdale]

Hello Connie:

Here's some more stuff about the home front.

The U.S.A. was producing all the oil needed to refine it to gas. There were far fewer cars in the 30's and 40's. - - - Most ladies did not drive during those years either. Steering the cars was much more difficult; no power steering, power brakes & all that good stuff.

Cars were not used to get to work; many men used public transportation instead; walking or riding a bike was a common method of getting to work.

Only the well-to-do people lived in suburbia and drove their cars to work. Yet, many of the "rich" drove their cars to the train station & took the interurban, or the steam R.R. to work.

This can go on and on but I'll stop here.

Floyd

[connie]

Floyd,

Your first hand observations continue to fascinate this postwar child. I enjoyed your observations about it being "a good time to be alive... when not being shot at." I hadn't thought about how a young man in uniform would be received in places where young men were now in short supply. And your further observations about cars and gasoline are interesting.

I guess "wealthy" was in the eye of the beholder. A car would be an impossible extravagance to a 20 year old enlisted man. But I know that for a brief time my parents had one which mom sold after her return to her hometown after Atterbury stay. Knowing this young couple's frugality I suspect that it may have been vital in getting from camp to the place where mom roomed and conserving time together that was also rationed. I don't know the distance. But your observations have raised interesting questions about the motivation behind the purchase of that car.

On a smaller scale I am wondering about the saving of fats for the war movement. I've read that glycerin that was used in the production of gun powder (I think?) was extracted from these fats. I know bacon fat was saved. I'm guessing that suet and kitchen oils were also among the things saved. How these were collected and funneled into production is something I can 't even begin to fathom. I'm guessing that not only those at home but also those on KP duty at established military camps were involved in the fat saving efforts. Did you have any personal experience with these efforts?

Connie

[roger]

Being born just AFTER the war (1947) I obviously did not have personal experience with those "home front" activities. However, I do remember my mother talking about saving bacon grease and for years after the war my great aunt continued to save bacon grease.....not for the war effort at that time, of course, but my mother would use it for cooking. I guess it was a habit that my great aunt developed and could not force herself to "waste" something.

During the war, my mother left her little town in southern Illinois and moved to Indianapolis to work in a ball bearing factory for a couple years which was certainly a part of the home front action!

After the war I do recall we did not have a car for some years....my father worked digging ditches for the Ohio Oil Company (later Marathon) and would walk each morning to the place where he would join up with other ditch diggers and be driven to the oil fields where they were laying pipe. They were paid a few cents for each foot they dug....two spades deep and a trenching shovel wide.

[floydragsdale]

Hello Connie:

The following will answer some of your questions about the home front. - - - Floyd

Home Sweet Home Front: Dayton During World War II
Scrap Drives

War drives to conserve goods and salvage scrap materials were not only good for the war effort, they gave citizens a way to feel that they were contributing as well. The Office of Civilian Defense, created in May 1941, organized salvage drives for rubber, tin, paper and aluminum. The drives intensified when the United States entered the war.



TIN

In the fall of 1942, an intense publicity campaign to acquaint Dayton residents with the importance of collecting tin cans for the war effort was staged. “Many an unsuspecting Dayton housewife helps Hitler every day.” claimed the Journal Herald. “One look at the city dump shows why. For there, resting in peace, are thousands of rusty cans from which the vital tin can never be reclaimed for the war effort.”

It was pointed out that there were some pretty important reasons why the plea to salvage tin cans should be heeded. Two tin cans contained enough tin for a syrette, which was used for administrating sedatives on the battlefield to help prevent shock. They also were used on airplane instrument panels, aircraft bearings and for solder used in electrical equipment on a plane. And since tin was the only metal that wasn’t harmed by salt water, it was used to ship food overseas.

On Oct. 19, 1942 the War Production Board in Washington DC ordered that it was mandatory to collect discarded tin cans in any city with a population of 25,000 or more. The WPB order called for the segregation of tin cans from ordinary trash, something that Dayton had already been doing for more than a month. The day after the order, Judge Robert Martin, chairman of the Dayton-Montgomery County Salvage committee, announced that Dayton had already collected over 52,000 pounds of tin towards the war effort since the campaign had begun in the city on September 8.

Nearly every day the local newspapers ran a story on the large amount of tin cans being collected at the various schools. Soon it became a challenge to collect the largest amount of tin cans. It wasn’t unheard of for a school to collect 4 to 5 thousand pounds of tin cans a month. Brown School was highlighted in January 1943, for bringing in over 10,000 pounds of tin, with Fairview elementary coming in a close second with 9200 pounds.

The first concentrated effort to collect tin yielded approximately 172,000 pounds, or about six railroad carloads, of tin. As the war raged on tin continued to be collected, usually at the rate of close to 100,000 pounds a month.



FAT

The War Production Board urged citizens to save the fat that came from cooking so that it could be used for making explosives. Housewives were reminded that glycerin, made from waste fats and greases, was one of the most critical materials needed for the war effort. Three pounds of fat could provide enough glycerin to make a pound of gunpowder. Nearly 350 pounds of fat was needed to fire one shell from a 12-inch Naval gun.

Until Pearl Harbor approximately 60 percent of the glycerin used in the United States had been obtained from fats and oils imported from the Pacific areas, most of which were under the control of the Japanese during the war.

In June 1943, local Boy and Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls began a campaign to collect grease and fat from their neighborhoods. Hundreds of tin cans were cleaned and steamed by the Wolf Creek Soap Co. for distribution among members of each group. Each can was identified with a sticker bearing the householder’s name and address as well as a phone number to call for the can to be collected when it was full. According to the plan, each child leaving the can would collect it when it was full and take it to a local butcher, who would pay them four cents a pound for it. Proceeds from the grease sale were given to the troop treasury for the benefit of the troop.

A quota was set for Montgomery County to collect 45,000 pounds of grease and waste fat a month. Collection was hard at first, with the county coming up short approximately 16.000 pounds in July 1943, alone. Soon, however, Daytonians began to do their part. While the quota was rarely reached, many times it was still good enough for Montgomery County to be ranked either first or second highest in collections in the state of Ohio several times.



FUR

In 1942, the War Emergency Board of the Fur Industry organized the Fur Vest Project to manufacture and distribute fur-lined vests to Allied Merchant Seamen whose job it was to convoy vital supplies to the various fighting fronts. Management of the fur industry contributed all the necessary materials and machines to convert the old furs into much needed vests.

To help in this effort, a “fur ball” was held at the Biltmore Hotel in Dayton on September 28, 1942. Admission to the ball was by means of the donation of a piece of fur. Over 2000 pieces of fur was donated by about 500 dancers. Service men were admitted to the ball for free.

Through the nation-wide drive, enough material was gathered to make nearly 50,000 vests. Letters were later received from all over the world thanking those who were kind enough to donate their time and their furs.

“The Fur Vests which you so kindly sent us were received in good order,” wrote R. E. Hudgins, “and on behalf of the Navy Armed Guard, Merchant Crew, and Officers of this vessel wish to express our gratitude and thanks for a splendid gift. They were our warmest friends on our recent trip to Russia.”



HOSIERY

Women were asked to turn in their hosiery to help with the war effort. Silk stockings were used to make powder bags in naval and artillery guns, while nylon hose was used to manufacture parachutes and tow ropes for gliders.

On February 18, 1943 an intensive effort to gather up old silk and nylon hosiery in the Dayton area resulted in the collection of nearly 225,000 pairs of hose. In one instance a woman who had been making rugs from old stockings brought in her partly finished rugs, while another woman donated 118 pairs of stockings she had collected over a period of ten years intending to make rugs. By the end of September 1943, about 46 million pairs of hosiery, or over 2 million pounds, had been collected nationally. This was an amazing feat, due to the fact that no silk or nylon hosiery had been manufactured for quite some time.



PAPER

An intense drive for paper was begun in Dayton in the fall of 1943. Although several drives had been conducted before, it actually hadn’t yet been needed and couldn’t be used in the quantities collected. But by September 1943, it was determined that 70,000,000 tons of waste paper would be required for the war effort over the next year. Increased demand by the armed forces and the decrease in virgin pulpwood was responsible for the shortage. The WPB estimated that 30 thousand tons of paperboard was needed each month for packing shells alone. A carload of blue print paper was needed to draw the plans for each new battleship. Over one million paper milk bottles were used daily in army camps.

The largest problem was that with the shortage of gasoline, it was economically impossible for even charitable organizations to go door to door and collect the paper. Waste paper could not be collected in boxes because it offered no protection against the weather, which sometimes soaked the contents and made it useless. To help out, the Dayton Daily News began to collect newspapers from their customers and promised that it would be taken to a salvage station. The Boy Scouts of Montgomery County also jumped in to help, collecting over 178 tons in July 1944.





RUBBER

In May 1942, rubber in quantities large and small made its way to Dayton filling stations in answer to President Roosevelt’s call for rubber to help out in the war effort. Rubber became scarce when supplies from the Dutch East Indies were no longer available due to Japan controlling that area. The first day alone, Ora McAfee’s Service Station on South Broadway hauled approximately 10 tons rubber, largely old tires, to the Standard Oil bulk station.

Using the motto, “Save Rubber to help Slap the Jap”, school children of Dayton and Montgomery county were urged to begin bringing in rubber to their schools. For people without children, a large bin for the deposit of used rubber articles was placed outside the courthouse. Dayton Mayor Frank M. Krebs got into the act by donating his old garden hose. Four-year-old Richard Allison claimed “I’m helping Uncle Sam” as he helped Ralph Ramby load up 1000 pounds of old fan belts onto the rubber pile in front of the courthouse.

Within two days over 75,000 pounds had been collected, with nearly ten thousand pounds of that coming from shoe repair shops in the form of old rubber heels and soles.

Judge Robert U. Martin, chairman of the salvage committee of the Dayton defense council, urged citizens to turn in their trunk mats. “These rubber trunk mats weigh three to four pounds apiece” he claimed. “People can easily do without them. If they are donated by automobile owners throughout the country the total of the contribution to the drive will amount to thousands of tons of rubber.”

Funds to buy scrap rubber at one cent a pound from persons unwilling to donate were furnished by the Petroleum Industry War Council, Washington, who had endorsed the campaign. Gasoline stations used all types of scales, in some cases even bringing along bathroom scales from home to weigh the rubber contributions.

The Boy Scouts, as usual, got into the act. Boy Scouts of Troop 49 discovered a “rubber mine” at the Gradsky gravel pit on Princeton drive. The rubber, which consisted of trimmings from the molding operations from the Inland factory, had been dumped there years ago. They began removing a large pile of scrap owned by Ben Gradsky on Burnett Avenue. The 10,000 pounds of scrap was sold and the proceeds divided between Gradsky and the Scouts. The Scouts also assisted in removing rubber heels from shoes donated to Goodwill Industries.

A goal of 1,200,000 pounds of rubber by July 1942 was set. Judge Martin declared that Dayton would reach its goal, if everyone got into the act.

“We want all housewives to get all heels out of their homes- husbands excepted.” he pleaded with only five days to go in the campaign.

In an effort to do everything possible to help in the war effort, Mrs. Harry E. Meyers, of 28 Willowwood Drive, was reported to have trained her dog to dig up and bring home nothing but scrap rubber, all of which she was adding to the collection.

Her dog had a lot of help in the end. Through a last minute arrangement, the Dayton Rubber Manufacturing company donated one and a half million pounds of scrap rubber that had accumulated at their dump. A by-product of its own rubber manufacturer, the material had not been thought good enough by rubber reclaimers to recycle, but was found to be more than good enough for the war effort. The arrangement boosted the rubber collected in the county to 3,740,281 pounds at the end of the rubber drive.



SCRAP METAL

Scrap metal drives were held in an effort to recover metal to build military equipment for the war effort. The items scrapped were varied and unusual. The metal scrap drive reached into the archives of the Dayton Municipal Court in October 1942. Roy Ebert, court clerk, came up with a collection of devious devices of all sorts to consign to the heap. The items were articles offered as evidence in criminal court cases over the years and included slot machines, hammers, knives, keys, razors, daggers and a varying assortment of revolvers.

Patricia Waymire, six-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Webster V. Waymire, donated a Civil war muzzle-loading shotgun to the scrap drive at Ruskin school. The Huffman family, who had helped pioneer the city of Dayton, had originally owned the shotgun. The gun later became the property of the Waymire’s in 1914.



The old Court House at Third and Main had 15 foot iron doors which were on the Main Street side, and two sets of steel doors facing the county jail. Hints were made that they should come down. Fortunately, they survived.

Other items from Dayton’s past were not so fortunate. In 1942, President Roosevelt ordered state and federal departments to scrap all monuments, cannons and other ornamental metal that was not absolutely indispensable. On September 28, 1942, the National Military Home in Dayton announced that twenty-two tons of cannon and field pieces were going to be scrapped. These relics of past wars, some of them dating back to the Civil War, included a two and a half-ton cannon.

The Earnshaw Camp of the Sons of the Union Veterans, voted on whether their eight cannons should join the growing stack of scrap for the war effort. Members voted unanimously not to remove the cannons from where they sat on Patterson Boulevard, the old Court House and various cemeteries, “until the country is invaded” as one spokesman for the organization said. Although pressured, the organization considered the cannons memorials and therefore too sacred to turn into scrap.

Not so lucky was a large German cannon, belonging to the Battery D of the 134th field artillery of the 37th division, who presented the cannon to the scrap drive on October 18, 1942. The 7,800-pound German cannon, captured in the First World War, left the spot where it had stood at the east end of the Ridge Avenue bridge near Triangle Park.

By October 20, 1942 the face of Dayton had changed by the removal of 100 ornamental iron fences around the city. Even the bronze lion at the former Steele high school was considered for the smelter. The Oak Knoll Memorial association approved the donation of the cannon at the Oak Knoll Community Country club about the same time, as was the cannon in Riverside park, donated to the drive by Dayton Post 5 of the American Legion.

Even theaters got into the act. On February 26, 1943 Dayton movie theaters such as the Elite, Alhambra, McCook, Far Hills, Dale and The Salem held a matinee. Instead of money, admission was either a half-pound of copper or five pounds of any other metal. The matinees were held in compliance with a request from the War Activities Committee in Washington to motion picture houses throughout the country.

Scrap refrigerator cabinets containing metal sufficient “for a medium-sized battleship or 10 tanks” was seized by Federal agents in March 1942 from a farm on Pinnacle Road in West Carrollton. It was estimated that over 10,000 tons of scrap metal was seized. The seizure was made after the owners refused to sell it to scrap dealers.

The scrap metal had been placed in a deep ravine in order to prevent corrosion of the farm’s soil.

“We’ll just have to let the farm wash away now,” one of the owners of the farm stated, “for it is too far from Dayton to get anything else, like cement chunks, thrown into that ravine. I don’t know why the big shots in Washington didn’t think of this five years ago instead of selling our scrap metal to the Japs to kill those poor Chinese.”



Sidebar text:



West Third Auto Parts encouraged Daytonians to “Sell us your car and BUY BONDS”. By the end of the war, scrap drives were supplying much of the steel and half of the tin needed for American weapons production. Just as important was the fact that the various scrap drives joined together the citizens of Dayton in a morale-boosting cause.

[connie]

Thanks, Floyd & Roger,

That was quite a comprehensive post on drives for various items in short supply, Floyd. It answered a lot of questions about who did the collection and how the efforts took place at the local level. Thanks! The personal experiences you have both shared add depth to the site. Details like your mother moving to work at a ball bearing factory and the ongoing discussion of cars certainly add a lot of real life texture to the home front picture. When you speak of work after the war, Roger, you open up a whole new topic that is worth exploring...

[MomsHugs]

Floyd, I thoroughly enjoyed this thread due to you! Please write that book! You have a way with words & phrases that bring your memories alive. It could become required reading in history starting in Middle School. I would love to put your stories on my Moms Hugs blog. Do you have a source or link to the Dayton Scrap Drive story?

[floydragsdale]

Hello Eva:

Thank you for your kind comments.

I was out of town for a few days last week. Now it's catch up time for many things.

The Dayton Scrap Drive story came from a web site on internet. Hence I copied it and sent it to Connie.

Gee, how I remember the scrap drives. There were many ways to contribute to the War Effort. People had "victory gardens" at home so food, from other sources,could be supplied to the armed forces.

One scary thing I remember, early in the war is that allied ships were being sunk faster than they could be built.

Mr. & Mrs. America constantly had their ears glued to the radio in hopes of hearing some good news. The American Army was pitifully small and ill equiped compared to the ones in Japan, Italy and Germany. Indeed, the early war years brought some anxious moments to a nation that was just emerging from over ten years of depression.

Many of us had a saying that said, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." With a war on our hands, men went away to war and the ladies rolled up their hair and sleeves to take the jobs the men left behind. People began to have money in their pockets yet, there wasn't much to buy; if anything. Folks were urged to save their money and buy bonds for the war effort.

Many US citizens did that and golly, were they ready to spent their money when the war ended.

Floyd